If you want respect, schedule good teams, Part 3 of 4

3/4.

Part 2/4.
Part 1/4.

Everyone argues that strength of schedule should mean everything in college football, until someone calls their team out on scheduling Directional Community College...

As promised, here's the top five weakest schedules BCS bowl teams have played from 2003 through 2007. Here’s my criteria for selection:

-I-AA schools! Like in Schedules, Part 2 the addition of I-AA schools has a huge impact on the relative ease of a team’s schedule. Most of the teams on this list have at least one I-AA opponent on there. While some of those I-AAs are very good teams, and others are a close step up from high school ball, they are all a detriment to any pro-strength of schedule argument. Face it, if you want to get respect for your team’s schedule, then play teams in your own classification.

-Opponent records, looking back. Was a team hyped in the beginning of the year, only to fall flat on its face? Sure, beating Michigan State in September looks good, but how good is it when they’re in one of those patented late-season meltdowns. Even in the bowl games, beating a team that was thought to be unstoppable all year, then was blown out in its last regular-season game, seriously diminishes the significance of playing them in the bowl.

-Opponent conference affiliations. Think of this as a two-parter. If a team plays in the MAC or the Sun Belt, do you think its schedule is nearly as difficult as one from the Big Ten or SEC? I don’t care if a team plays five strong OOC games; if it doesn’t play more than half its schedule against strong competition, it’s not a strong schedule.

So here's what I came up with. THIS IS ALL IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER!

Just missed the cut. Close, but not easy enough...


Boise State started out 2006 with a real bang, playing a I-AA with a losing record. Oregon State was a nice win, but nothing real special. The Beavers are middle-of-the-pack Pac-10, so any decent team has a shot at beating them. Outside of the Fiesta bowl win over Oklahoma, the only other team with double digit wins was Hawai’i. Also playing seven teams with non-winning records won’t win any points with me.


If it wasn’t for the Red River Shootout against Oklahoma, this schedule would have been a complete joke. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a thousand times better than the Mid-Majors’ schedules, but to only play three ranked teams the entire season isn’t very good. To top that off, only one of them finished with more than nine wins, and Oklahoma was blown out in the BCS national championship game. The second best regular season game was against Texas Tech, which won eight games.


So now that the SEC fans are laughing at the rest of the BCS teams, here it goes. In 2003, LSU won the BCS national championship, but didn’t have to work that hard to get there. It was a down year in the SEC, and LSU jumped at the opportunity. The first three wins were near automatic, and outside of the Georgia game, any good team should beat all of the remaining opponents. I know there are three games against top-10 opponents, but the two wins against Georgia is a glaring smudge on LSU’s credibility. This schedule is much less spectacular than the SEC fans want to think.

Now, for the top five easiest schedules among BCS bowl teams from 2003-2007...


I do love Kansas State. They usually follow right along with the other Big XII folks by telling I-AA “Come on down! We’ll give you lots of money to lose to us!” I know KSU played mostly teams with winning records, but when you have those two glaring I-AAs on there, you can’t expect to be taken seriously. The only reason this isn’t the clear-cut most horrible schedule is due to the two top-ten teams played late in 2003.


It must be a Kansas thing. Right on the heels of its state rival, the Jayhawks could sum up the 2007 schedule as nothing less than The Mediocre Express. I’ve never seen so many teams hovering around .500 in my life. Throw in Florida International—the Panthers won their last game of the year over North Texas to avoid going winless—and this schedule has a hard time using Missouri and Virginia Tech to compensate for the top 11 teams.


If I were to actually rank these schedules, I think this one would go right to the top. When the best team played is only ranked No. 25 at the end of the year, you’re in trouble. Utah’s 2004 schedule featured no teams with 10 wins or more. That’s rough, especially since the Ute’s BCS opponent lost four games. There’s not much more to say about this one. It’s pretty clear cut.


On the flip side, however, look at Pittsburgh’s 2004 schedule. Playing in a Virginia Tech and Miami-less Big East really killed all possible chances for this schedule to be considered tough. But then again, if those two were still in the league, Pitt wouldn’t have won the conference. Boston College was the best team on the schedule until the bowl, and the only other team to win more than nine games was I-AA Furman. The I-AAs strike again!


Hawaii was a good team in 2007, but its schedule cloaked the fact that the Warriors were still a far way off from competing at the BCS level. I’m still not really sure how people (I’ll admit it, I thought they had a change against Georgia) just looked past Hawaii’s schedule. I mean, for God’s sake people, more teams lost 10 games than won ten games. A MAC team could have gone undefeated playing Hawaii’s 2007 schedule.

Check out Schedules, Part 4, which should be out by next week. In that, I’ll go over which premier games I’m looking forward to in the next five seasons. Hope you enjoyed the “bests and worsts” of BCS bowl team schedules. Well, actually I don't really care if you enjoyed it. But thanks for reading anyway.