The SEC West is the toughest conference in college football this year. Period. No one has to face a slate like the teams from the SEC West this year.
In ESPN's Football Power Index ratings (FPI), they rank the future SOS for each team:
Bama: 2
Ark: 1
Aub: 9
LSU: 3
MSU: 18
Miss: 11
aTm: 13
That's national strength of schedule rank for remaining games. For the SEC West teams only. I didn't even look at the SEC East. Who cares about Power 5 vs Power 5. Doesn't hold a candle to having to play in the SEC West.
This is what a lot of people refuse to get. There is just no accounting for how tough SEC conference play is. I remember Nick Saban said something along the lines of if an upcoming team isn't ranked, they should be. As someone else said, playing in the SEC is like a bowl game every week. That's why, when it comes to bowl games the SEC dominates, they're used to it.
In the last three years, they've been 5-3 (before new additions), 6-3, and 7-3. The other side of that is that the SEC teams, even the ones that would win their bowl games, and that would dominate other conferences, might have to play some easier games just to get bowl eligible. Both the number of bowl games, and the overall record speaks for itself. But, the path from the SEC to the championship is like no other. For instance, last year Alabama would have had to beat 3 top 5 teams in a row to win the championship. No other conference created a situation like that.
those are interesting SOS.....weren't people talking about our lack of SOS before the season started?
Alabama's OOC SoS is still low, but as you see it's clearly balanced out and SoS has one misleading characteristic. It acts as though there's a big difference between for instance the #80 team and the #120 team. But, for a championship caliber team, both are a guaranteed win. What SoS doesn't fully account for is a run like Alabama will have to do. I saw a weak argument made on behalf of the Big 12, that all those conference games get even harder, that Iowa State is just so much more difficult as the season progresses.
Ok, try LSU, try Auburn...