College Football Strength of Schedule

BamaMoon · Jun 11, 2014

Lots of talk every year about this and especially in the off/preseason leading up to the actual season.

One of the accusations against Bama every year, especially from barner fans, is how "easy" our SOS always is.

But really, how do you truly measure SOS and how unfair is it for teams, like Bama, who are perrenially at the top of the national polls and the top of their own conference???

By virtue of being the best team you don't play yourself and your opposition will always seem to be "weaker," but the teams that play you will always have a top team that makes their SOS look "tougher."

Here's a link to the 2014 SOS rankings: http://www.fbschedules.com/2014/04/2014-college-football-strength-of-schedule-ncaa-method/

The Arkansas Razorbacks have the toughest 2014 football schedule according to the NCAA’s strength of schedule method. The NCAA method is based solely on the opponents’ win/loss record from the previous season.

The SEC leads with four teams in the Top 10 of the rankings — Arkansas (1), Tennessee (3), Texas A&M (5), and Kentucky (6).

Guess who 3 of these 4 teams have on the schedule?

WVU is #12, and guess who they have on their schedule?

The Barn is #16, guess who they have on their schedule?

Florida is #22, and guess who they have on their schedule?

Ole Myth is #26, guess who they have on their schedule?

I looked and unless I missed someone, everybody on our schedule has a harder schedule than us, ranked at #95.

Seems the fact you don't play yourself, in a game that counts, is truly the flaw in this type of SOS formula and it doesn't also factor in the game you'd play in the SECCG if you get there.

GrayTide · Jun 11, 2014

1. A team's SOS for this year is based on how its opponents did last year, is that correct?
2. In the SEC since we cannot play every team then the SOS is determined by the particular year's rotation from the other division. In most years, Florida and Tennessee would be a much more difficult opponents than USCe, Ole Miss and auburn. That is not the case this year, at least I don't think it is.

IMO all 128 team's SOS should be evaluated and reset every week in order to truly reflect any team's current SOS and be taken into consideration in the polls.

Con · Jun 11, 2014

GrayTide said:
1. A team's SOS for this year is based on how its opponents did last year, is that correct?
2. In the SEC since we cannot play every team then the SOS is determined by the particular year's rotation from the other division. In most years, Florida and Tennessee would be a much more difficult opponents than USCe, Ole Miss and auburn. That is not the case this year, at least I don't think it is.

IMO all 128 team's SOS should be evaluated and reset every week in order to truly reflect any team's current SOS and be taken into consideration in the polls.

And you know there is some computer person out there that can put that program together rather quickly. They could plug numbers in weekly and there you have it.

KrAzY3 · Jun 11, 2014

Why are we even having this discussion? Did everyone not look at the SoS criteria they are using? Winning percentage! That's it!

Let me put this is another context. According to that method, Central Florida would be a more difficult opponent in 2014 than Alabama. Heck, if we're going to take that line of thinking, we might as well say that North Dakota St. is as good as Florida St.

But, to the point that I believe the OP is trying to make, I remember during the 2009 championship season, Alabama had the #2 SoS (real SoS, as calculated by Sagarin, not some idiot with a calculator and nothing but winning percentages). Miss. St. who of course played Alabama had the #1 SoS. It certainly was the case that year that the only team with a more difficult schedule was a team who had to play Alabama.

CoachJeff · Jun 11, 2014

Con said:
And you know there is some computer person out there that can put that program together rather quickly. They could plug numbers in weekly and there you have it.

Sagarin.

Bama's SOS doesn't look great this year. If it shakes out like many folks think it will Bama will have played 5-6 top 25 teams. Not a gauntlet but not bad.

BamaMoon · Jun 11, 2014

The 2014 NCAA SOS is based solely on your opponents winning percentage from 2013. Granted, this has to be preseason rankings since no games have yet been played in 2014.

If I'm not mistaken, there are some statiticians who will start adjusting this as games begin to be played in 2014.

My original point is the better teams in the country will often fall way down on this list year in a year out because they are the best team on their own schedule and they don't play themselves and never will.

It is what it is but it's also a counter argument for those who always complain our SOS isn't as good as theirs.

BamaMoon · Jun 11, 2014

KrAzY3 said:
Why are we even having this discussion? Did everyone not look at the SoS criteria they are using? Winning percentage! That's it!

Let me put this is another context. According to that method, Central Florida would be a more difficult opponent in 2014 than Alabama. Heck, if we're going to take that line of thinking, we might as well say that North Dakota St. is as good as Florida St.

But, to the point that I believe the OP is trying to make, I remember during the 2009 championship season, Alabama had the #2 SoS (real SoS, as calculated by Sagarin, not some idiot with a calculator and nothing but winning percentages). Miss. St. who of course played Alabama had the #1 SoS. It certainly was the case that year that the only team with a more difficult schedule was a team who had to play Alabama.

Aren't you looking at the Central Fl. vs. Bama example wrong? It isn't how good you are but how tough of a schedule you're playing based on the opponents you'll play.

KrAzY3 · Jun 11, 2014

BamaMoon said:
Aren't you looking at the Central Fl. vs. Bama example wrong? It isn't how good you are but how tough of a schedule you're playing based on the opponents you'll play.

The mind-numbingly idiotic SoS criteria that's been cited is merely based on winning percentage. This means, that if Central Florida is on your schedule, you will get a higher SoS score than if Alabama is on there. It actually has absolutely nothing to do with how tough the schedule is at all, just how moronic that statistic is.

This carries over to all other programs as well, they have FIU as having a high ranking SoS (18th).
Here is their actual schedule!
Aug. 30 BETHUNE-COOKMAN
Sept. 6 WAGNER
Sept. 13 PITTSBURGH
Sept. 20 LOUISVILLE
Sept. 27 at UAB*
Oct. 4 FLORIDA ATLANTIC*
Oct. 11 at UTSA*
Oct. 18 MARSHALL*
Nov. 1 RICE*
Nov. 8 at Old Dominion*
Nov. 15 MIDDLE TENNESSEE*
Nov. 22 at North Texas*

That schedule! That load of ridiculousness, according to those morons, is more difficult than Georgia, Florida (who plays FSU and LSU to name a couple), etc... Seriously, what can you say that that? Look at those teams!

BamaMoon · Jun 11, 2014

What you actually said was Central Florida would be a more difficult opponent than Alabama. That's not what the SOS is determining.

KrAzY3 · Jun 11, 2014

BamaMoon said:
What you actually said was Central Florida would be a more difficult opponent than Alabama. That's not what the SOS is determining.

Yes it is, and I said "according to that method".

SoS means "strength of schedule", which is intended to measure the difficulty of the schedule and as such, the difficulty of facing the opponents on said schedule. The problem is that "SoS" that you're citing doesn't even come close to measuring true difficulty! I'm not really sure where you're going with this (other than the valid point that you don't have to play yourself), but the data is faulty.

My point is this, that entire ranking is ridiculous and if there's any confusion see the other two points I made (about UCF and FIU).

BamaMoon · Jun 11, 2014

Sorry Krazy, but I now see what you are saying.

IH8Orange · Jun 11, 2014

Con said:
And you know there is some computer person out there that can put that program together rather quickly. They could plug numbers in weekly and there you have it.

They don't even have to plug in numbers. Basically all data collected by the NCAA in all divisions of football is available as a file in one of several standard formats from their website and you'd simply have to use one of the many widely available parsing programs to use the data.

IGetBuckets · Jun 11, 2014

KrAzY3 said:
Uhh no... the mind-numbingly idiotic SoS criteria that's been cited is merely based on winning percentage. This means, that if Central Florida is on your schedule, you will get a higher SoS score than if Alabama is on there. It actually has absolutely nothing to do with how tough the schedule is at all, just how moronic that statistic is.

This carries over to all other programs as well, they have FIU as having a high ranking SoS (18th).
Here is their actual schedule!
Aug. 30 BETHUNE-COOKMAN
Sept. 6 WAGNER
Sept. 13 PITTSBURGH
Sept. 20 LOUISVILLE
Sept. 27 at UAB*
Oct. 4 FLORIDA ATLANTIC*
Oct. 11 at UTSA*
Oct. 18 MARSHALL*
Nov. 1 RICE*
Nov. 8 at Old Dominion*
Nov. 15 MIDDLE TENNESSEE*
Nov. 22 at North Texas*

That schedule! That load of ridiculousness, according to those morons, is more difficult than Georgia, Florida (who plays FSU and LSU to name a couple), etc... Seriously, what can you say that that? Look at those teams!

Road game at uab carries a lot of weight

KrAzY3 · Jun 11, 2014

BamaMoon said:
Sorry Krazy, but I now see what you are saying.

I do think we're in basic agreement here, I do have a habit of addressing the content of a post, vs. the poster. So, if they post a link, or quote, or what not, my response might be entirely based on that, vs. anything they might have had to say. I apologize for how that might come off sometimes.

I can elaborate on why I took exception. This is the second post I saw with that particular standing listed. The first one I saw, didn't even credit the methodology, but I was left quite perplexed after I looked at Arkansas' schedule. There was just no way it was the most difficult. I'm not sure I even responded, but it left me irritated by something so obviously incorrect. So, when you posted this link, it both informed me and gave me something to vent about.

All SoS is flawed, and I think that's what you were trying to get at. It's scary to think that SoS will be one of the main criteria for determining who plays for a championship, when as this illustrates, it easily provides misleading results. I guess I can provide a bullet list of the flaws (one you pointed out) with some, or all of the SoS calculations.

#1: SoS is entirely percentage based. This means that to an SoS calculation, a 12 game schedule and a 14 game schedule are no different.
#2: A team does not play itself. So, a good team's opponents will tend to have a higher SoS than it does.
#3: Any SoS that calculates solely according to winning percentage is horribly flawed and misleading.
#4: SoS is most accurate at the end of the post-season. It gives us the most viable information after the bowl games, which is after any matchups have been determined. It is all but worthless, prior to the start of a season.
#5: SoS has no way to calculate the physical toll a particular opponent might take. It only determines the difficulty of getting a win (if that). It might view a win over UCLA as the same as LSU, when we know that playing LSU isn't something a team recovers from in one week. Furthermore, it has no way of calculating the difficulty of for instance playing 4 tough SEC teams in a row. In particular when it comes to the SEC, I don't think it can accurately measure how truly difficult the schedule is.

I could go on, but I do think that SoS has it's place. I just preferred it much more as a part of the computer calculations, which were in turn a part of the BCS formula. I am very nervous to see it put forth as a primary criteria, and seeing that the NCAA might say FIU has the 18th most difficult schedule doesn't exactly help those concerns.

/SoS rant

IGetBuckets · Jun 11, 2014

KrAzY3 said:
I could go on, but I do think that SoS has it's place. I just preferred it much more as a part of the computer calculations, which were in turn a part of the BCS formula. I am very nervous to see it put forth as a primary criteria, and seeing that the NCAA might say FIU has the 18th most difficult schedule doesn't exactly help those concerns.

/SoS rant

I think SOS and "Conference champ" are going to be the 2 primary curtains the "Committee"
hides behind when they are leaving out a second SEC team in favor of a less deserving team from another region.

TommyMac · Jun 11, 2014

How can a team playing in the toughest division of the toughest conference in the nation have one of the softest schedules in CFB?

It's a ridiculous notion.

colbysullivan · Jun 11, 2014

TommyMac said:
How can a team playing in the toughest division of the toughest conference in the nation have one of the softest schedules in CFB?

It's a ridiculous notion.

And that my friends is the long and short of it. People have complained for years how soft Bama's schedule is.

The reality is no team in the SEC can possibly play a weak schedule.

Con · Jun 11, 2014

KrAzY3 said:
I do think we're in basic agreement here, I do have a habit of addressing the content of a post, vs. the poster. So, if they post a link, or quote, or what not, my response might be entirely based on that, vs. anything they might have had to say. I apologize for how that might come off sometimes.

I can elaborate on why I took exception. This is the second post I saw with that particular standing listed. The first one I saw, didn't even credit the methodology, but I was left quite perplexed after I looked at Arkansas' schedule. There was just no way it was the most difficult. I'm not sure I even responded, but it left me irritated by something so obviously incorrect. So, when you posted this link, it both informed me and gave me something to vent about.

I appreciate you taking the time to explain what you were doing in addressing the content and not the poster. It seems to me sometimes we might misinterpret what is actually happening when someone responds to a linked article. We do have a civil board and I enjoy reading your posts.

PacadermaTideUs · Jun 11, 2014

I've never put a lot of stock into somebody's numerical calculation of SoS. If you don't like computer rankings, you should HATE computer SoS rankings. Whatever flaws are inherent in computer rankings are magnified by that ranking's calculation of SoS. There's so much subjectivity that goes into what makes a difficult schedule.

Even assuming the individual rankings below are 100% accurate (which we all know they're not in the real world), which schedule is harder:

#1 ranked team
#19 ranked team
#40 ranked team
#60 ranked team
Average: #30

or:

#26 ranked team
#28 ranked team
#30 ranked team
#32 ranked team
Average: #29

By the average, the second schedule should be more difficult. But if you're the 25th best team out there, you should go undefeated playing the second schedule and lose two games playing the first.

And to feed SoS too heavily back into overall rankings is a circular argument. Stronger teams have weaker schedules because they play the other teams, which are weaker. Weaker teams have stronger schedules because they play the other teams, which are stronger. It's not valid to then too heavily adjust the stronger teams to be weaker and the weaker teams to be stronger based on SoS.

Should SoS be accounted for when ranking teams? Absolutely. But it's a subjective accounting, not one that can be easily calculated in a numerical way.

bama61 · Jun 11, 2014

Whether its fair or not, our cupcake rich out of conference schedule could penalize us heavily if the championship series selection committee considers SoS to be a major factor in their considerations.

College Football Strength of Schedule

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