2009 College Football Schedule Strengths

Each year there is the debate of who has the toughest schedule and this factors in to discussions later in the season about if a 1-loss team can be ranked ahead of an undefeated team, and so on.  In order to help answer those questions, or perhaps just to add fuel to the fire, here are the schedule strengths of all the I-A teams for the 2009 schedule using the end of 2008 ratings.

For the purposes of this table, I've simply averaged the ratings of each opponent taking into account whether the game is home/away/neutral.

Now obviously, using last years ratings only gives an indication of schedule strength as each team has changed.  So I'll be updating this throughout the season.

It is interesting to see how many ACC teams appear to have tough schedules.  And the perceived to be tough SEC does not have as many as you might think.  Now, this is likely due to many SEC teams scheduling cream-puffs and that pulling their averages down.  I may play with looking at some stats other than just averaging the opponents later on to help take a better look.

It is also interesting to see Boise State with the #108 ranked schedule which helps explain why they are projected to go 12-1 with a 28% chance of going undefeated.

Rank	Team	Schedule Strength
Rank	Team	Schedule Strength
1	Florida St	77.009
2	Baylor	76.345
3	Virginia Tech	76.006
4	Miami FL	75.936
5	South Carolina	75.823
6	Maryland	75.599
7	Georgia Tech	75.319
8	Oklahoma St	75.251
9	Kansas	75.037
10	Oklahoma	75.028
11	Virginia	74.962
12	Texas Tech	74.954
13	Oregon	74.694
14	Texas A&M	74.417
15	Nebraska	74.317
16	Vanderbilt	74.247
17	Wake Forest	74.213
18	Minnesota	74.030
19	Washington St	73.978
20	Washington	73.899
21	Texas	73.896
22	Colorado	73.882
23	Arkansas	73.828
24	Georgia	73.772
25	Clemson	73.759
26	Stanford	73.678
27	UCLA	73.488
28	Mississippi St	73.484
29	Tennessee	73.445
30	Auburn	73.222
31	Wyoming	73.133
32	LSU	73.084
33	Syracuse	73.025
34	Southern Cal	73.018
35	California	72.921
36	Missouri	72.915
37	Arizona	72.739
38	Boston College	72.725
39	North Carolina	72.595
40	Indiana	72.469
41	Iowa	72.306
42	Illinois	72.173
43	Duke	72.169
44	New Mexico	71.927
45	Iowa St	71.913
46	Notre Dame	71.884
47	Brigham Young	71.772
48	North Carolina St	71.716
49	Oregon St	71.697
50	Connecticut	71.565
51	Michigan St	71.483
52	Purdue	71.438
53	Arizona St	71.340
54	San Jose St	71.326
55	Florida	71.310
56	Ohio State	71.295
57	Louisville	71.148
58	Kentucky	71.144
59	Kansas St	71.129
60	UNLV	70.872
61	Wisconsin	70.723
62	Pittsburgh	70.657
63	Rice	70.614
64	South Florida	70.489
65	East Carolina	70.373
66	West Virginia	70.241
67	Tulsa	69.885
68	Miami OH	69.866
69	Colorado St	69.852
69	Michigan	69.852
71	Utah	69.718
72	Central Florida	69.488
73	Mississippi	69.348
74	Alabama-Birmingham	69.310
75	UTEP	69.228
76	Cincinnati	69.147
77	Navy	68.896
78	Air Force	68.837
78	TCU	68.837
80	Memphis	68.789
81	Florida Int'l	68.721
82	Tulane	68.714
83	Utah St	68.619
84	Houston	68.605
85	Bowling Green	68.565
86	Alabama	68.520
87	Nevada	68.246
88	Penn State	68.206
89	Toledo	68.078
90	SMU	67.856
91	San Diego St	67.760
92	Fresno St	67.759
93	Louisiana Tech	67.736
94	Eastern Michigan	67.718
95	Central Michigan	67.532
96	Northwestern	67.466
97	New Mexico St	67.205
98	Marshall	67.062
99	Idaho	66.883
100	Temple	66.856
101	Ohio U.	66.508
102	Troy	66.272
103	North Texas	66.187
104	Southern Miss	65.904
105	Hawaii	65.890
106	Army	65.867
107	Western Kentucky	65.712
108	Boise St	65.529
109	Kent St	65.471
110	Middle Tennessee St	65.442
111	Florida Atlantic	65.325
112	Akron	65.072
113	Western Michigan	64.912
114	Ball St	64.636
115	Buffalo	64.563
116	Louisiana-Monroe	64.326
117	Louisiana-Lafayette	64.130
118	Rutgers	64.085
119	Northern Illinois	63.742
120	Arkansas St	63.036