Right now. November 17, 2018. Alabama has the number 4 schedule in the country. Feel free to shove that stat in anyone and everyones face for the rest of the year. Good day.
https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/ranking/schedule-strength-by-other
1) I don't buy this ranking for even one second. Sagarin, a well-respected service, had us at 37 before yesterday. I think that's probably more accurate.
2) Strength of schedule arguments are - for the most part - inherently specious anyway.
The catch is this: you don't even get to an SoS argument unless you're trying to compare either one loss/no loss teams (UCF/Michigan, for example) or one loss/one loss teams. Once you get past one loss - in CFB anyway - SoS arguments fall by the wayside. Many years the team that plays the toughest SoS has 4-5 losses. It's really amazing - you NEVER hear about "the strength of schedule" of a FIVE-LOSS team. You only hear about it when it concerns a team that's taking care of business.
3) People objecting to Alabama's schedule don't REALLY care about Alabama's schedule - they care about dissing Alabama.
This is one of those variants of "don't bother me with the facts, my mind is made up."
Right now I'm reading Daniel Petrocelli's book on the OJ Simpson civil trial. They hired a group (Decision Quest) to serve as jury consultants in order to find a jury more likely to render the "guilty" verdict. But in their screening an amazing thing happened: people predisposed to believe Simpson invented some of the most ridiculous things you ever heard of. Let's face it: the scientific evidence shows beyond question that he killed his ex-wife and Ron Goldman. That's the scientific fact. But a number of jurors were asked about the Bruno Magli shoes and a number of other things - would that lead them to a guilty conclusion - and responses were things like, "No, because someone else COULD have stolen his shoes and committed the murders."
And that's what you have here with this argument: people who are predisposed to despise Alabama use this shadow argument to make their case because it's easy. It's not much different than disproving a negative (except we actually play good teams in the playoffs).
The way I have begun to handle this is to cut to the chase and say, "OK, if you're crediting Alabama's success to a soft schedule then if they play good teams they will lose. So - name the teams you would bet your mortgage on beating Alabama." If they say Clemson (46 SoS entering yesterday), I make the point Clemson's SoS is lower - and that the two teams will actually play. Michigan's is 36, basically the same as us. And Notre Dame's is 49. In fact, among the top ten, only Penn State ranks higher than 31st in SoS, and they have THREE losses.
And guess what? The next objections are as follows:
a) Alabama refuses to play road games
b) Alabama refuses to play road games outside the South
c) the SEC only plays eight conference games
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The reason the SoS fools people is because sometimes it IS a valid objection. Sagarin actually had UCF ranked 23rd in the country yesterday with the 106th ranked schedule. The objections to UCF ARE valid because they've literally played nobody at all. Their entire case is based upon "but we beat Auburn last year who beat Alabama and Georgia last year."
The bizarre part is that they MAY have actually cost themselves in the public arena. Their utter arrogance in claiming a national title has turned people against them who would have liked them and rooted for the underdog otherwise. THEY have cost themselves with their big mouths - and it will ultimately bite them when (as is inevitable) they lose their next game.
