Medaggie said:
Out of conference schedule are made 3+ years in advance. They scheduled Michigan who were on their way to 3 straight conference titles. They scheduled Bama during the Saban Dynasty.
I am not sure why people think their OOC is light or they scheduled patsies. Most teams do not schedule a tough OOC game. Usually its 2-3 blowouts and maybe a middle/low power 4 conference.
Their schedule will always have OU which is a perennial top 10 team and us which always start the season top 20.
Some years they get a lighter schedule and in a few years they will flip with OU.
We were very fortunate to have likely the easiest schedule in the SEC. Just because we have scheduled the #1 team in the country is more b/c we didn't hold up out end of the bargain. If we beat ND and run the table like we are capable, then we would be top 5 come November.
If we played to our potential, they would be playing a top 15 MU/OU, #2 Ga, Top 5 A&M. That doesn't seem light at all. Compare that to any other conference and outside of the SEC, you can't find many teams playing this schedule.
Look at Miami, They will play maybe one team that ends up in the top 25. Currently their schedule has one team, #19 Louisville, on their schedule.
Look at tOSU, Their current schedule has #9 Oregon, 22 Neb, 10 PSU, 18 Michigan
USC has #13 LSU (when played), #18 Mich, 10 PSU, 22 Neb, 17 ND
texas has #10 Mich (when played), 15 OU, 2 Ga, 25 A&M
Objectively their schedule is harder all 3 teams
Several points to make about this...
1. Sips were forced to schedule marquee OOC games because they could not sell season tickets with their BDF home schedule since they always play the only game their fans cared about in Dallas.
2. As far as OU being a perennial Top 10 team goes, we will just have to see going forward. To their credit, they were the masters of dominating the Big 12/BDF. But I don't foresee them going 8-0 or 7-1 perennially in the SEC to remain a Top 10 team.
3. As far as where teams were ranked early in the year and where they are now, that means absolutely nothing. I don't know what Michigan's schedule looks like but most people have them going 8-4 at best. Will that be enough to keep them ranked? Maybe, only because they are Michigan and tOSU may need a win over a ranked team. Similarly, with OU's brutal schedule, they will most likely not finished ranked either. So tu will most likely only play two ranked teams and that is assuming we don't step on our dicks and lose a game we "shouldn't".
Not necessarily related to your post but something that also matters in this day and age of the wide open transfer portal is
when you play someone. If a team has had a larger than normal turnover, it may take time for that team to gel. Similarly, the same goes with a coaching change and a coaching change usually comes with a lot of roster churn anyway. All this to say that a team that sucks in September could become very salty by November. So you need to consider that when comparing schedules.