The 2010 Schedule, Part 2: SOS

© Copyright 2010, Paul Kislanko

It's never too soon to start the mostly-irrelevant arguments about schedule strength, although it is way too soon to have any objective measurement of how strong a team's opponents are. Instead, I'll just use last year's rankings, defined to be the best rank for which at least 50 percent of 112 computer rankings agree the team should be at least that highly ranked.

There are nearly an infinite number of ways to define schedule strength, and a case can be made for (or against) any of them. For FBS football, I prefer to emphasize the overall season: one game doesn't make a schedule "strong" even if it's against the #1 team any more than one game makes a schedule "weak" because it's against an unranked (non-FBS) team.

So I use a "weighted average" with over 75% of the weight assigned to the middle third of a team's schedule. For a 12-game season, the 5th through 8th -best teams contribute over three times as much as the 1st through 4th and 9th through 12th -best combined.

Last time I wrote Arizona State only has three non-conference slots to fill. To use even one of them to play a non-FBS team is a misdemeanor, and to use two ought to be a felony. That only applies to the effect of the Sun Devils' schedule on field connectivity: only 14 teams have a stronger overall schedule, and those two games come at the beginning of the season, so it's not like they're taking extra bye weeks during the year.

The 15 toughest schedules include only Pac 10, SEC and ACC teams (the top 10 only Pac 10 and SEC.) When the conference schedule includes seven or eight top-50 teams, it doesn't take many strong non-conference opponents to have the middle third of the schedule be strong.

It's the non-conference schedule that teams set for themselves. As shown by the Arizona State example, a team doesn't need to schedule tough non-conference games to have a difficult schedule. But teams from non-AQ conferences do need to if they are to finish with a high BCS Computer-ranking (and they need to win tough games in order to impress the poll-voters.)

Wyoming, Oregon State and Miami(Ohio) each have two non-conference opponents who finished in the top 10 last year for the strongest non-conference schedules. On the other end of the spectrum, Indiana plays no non-conference opponent who finished in the top 100! (On the other hand, it's arguable that Indiana plays no one very much worse than them... the Hoosiers finished 2009 in 90th place.)

The Data

Schedule Strength
This is a view of the season with opponents' names replaced with their 2009 ranks (the "consensus" of the 112 computer rankings that were published after the 2009 season's bowl games.)

The algorithm is as is described above, with weights for highest to lowest -ranked opponents' ranks being weighted by the percentages in this table:
ω1 ω2 ω3 ω4 ω5 ω6 ω7 ω8 ω9 ω10 ω11 ω12
0.05 0.54 2.69 8.06 16.11 22.56 22.56 16.11 8.06 2.69 0.54 0.05
The ranks are listed in chronological order, because it helps to know when a tough opponent is scheduled. Whether it's better to play a tough opponent early (before they are tested) or late (after your team has some games under its belt) depends upon the teams involved. But in any case it helps to know where the less-tough opponents fall.

Non-conference Schedule Strength
#NC ω1 ω2
3 33.3 66.7
4 25 75
5 20 80
This view is listed in best to worst -rank order. FBS teams that aren't independents have three, four, or five non-conference scheduling "opportunities." The ranking is based upon the strength of the best two of them in all cases, with weights as shown at right.

I chose to include the two best non-conference opponents to keep from penalizing teams that have fewer than 8 conference games - non-conference scheduling is difficult enough without having to find five teams with compatible available dates. I chose to weight the top-ranked opponent lower to account for the fact that more available dates should make it easier to find a top-ranked opponent if the team chooses to look for one.

The order for this list is best to worst -opponent's rank.

Season by Week
This list is ordered by teams' 2009 final ranks, and includes the game location as well as opponents' ranks. It will be updated throughout the season with game results.

All of the lists include the teams' 2009 final ranks to make it easier to compare the team to its 2010 opponents and links to the teams' schedules and results pages.