Last year Oklahoma St was not the second-best team in the Big 12 but had the best schedule and they landed in the Big 12 title game. With the Power Four conferences going to as many as 18 team leagues, who you play and who you miss is even more important.
Today I we look at the ACC. The SEC plays an 8-game schedule and unlike the other Power 4 conference no team has an edge with extra home games or fewer away games.
The next category to look at is conference records from last year. Normally when I do this, I can add up the wins and the losses and they should equal. The totals add up to 560-544 50.7% so you may think I did the math wrong but keep in mind the ACC had equal wins and losses for conference play but they added SMU (8-0), Cal (4-5) and Stanford (2-7). That is also the reason some teams opponents conference records add up to 64, 65 or 66 depending if the team drew Cal or Stanford which played 9 games.
The ACC figures to have some changes so the record may not be the most important indicator but it helps. As an example this year I feel Clemson and Miami are teams that will be at or near the top of the league but last year they were just 4-4 and 3-5 in ACC play.
In this category Duke faces the toughest schedule as their 2024 conference foes were a combined 40-24 in league play last year for 62.5% Nine team face foes that combined for over 50% last year and 8 teams face foes that combined for under 50%. The two teams at the bottom (where you want to be) are North Carolina St whose foes were just 26-40 39.4% in league play last year and Virginia Tech whose foes this year were just 25-40 38.5%
I have the chart color coded. Now, you may disagree with my ratings but I have all my preliminary numbers done as the portal is closed and almost all good players have signed that were out there. I have put the teams in three colors.
The top level of teams are the powers. I list those teams in RED for you do not want to play them. That top level category in no particular order are Florida St, Louisville, Clemson, Miami, Virginia Tech, North Carolina St and SMU
The next level is in Blue and they are teams that look like bowl teams or bowl caliber teams for this year.
The bottom level is Green for teams that you want to draw. I did rate 5 teams down here including Duke which is going thru a coaching change and lost a lot of players as well as Boston College (a late coaching change), Wake Forest, Virginia and Stanford.
This is where this year’s schedule disparity stands out. There are three teams in the ACC that are playing FIVE top level teams and the one that will probably have the most impact on conference record is Georgia Tech (don’t they always have the toughest schedule?).
There are 4 teams that face four of the power teams, 6 that play 3 and the four teams that have the best schedule on paper are SMU, North Carolina and Virginia Tech which have just two of the RED teams on their schedule and North Carolina St which avoids Miami, Florida St, Louisville, SMU and Virginia Tech.
Here is the chart and here is how I grade this year’s CONFERENCE schedules, keep in mind non-conference games are not included in this strength of schedule.
Remember I have a new daily blog each and every day this year so stop back to philsteele.com and check it out each day. Also did you know the digital magazine is updated all the way thru the start of the football season. We circle players that are out for the year, add in any new transfers and update position outlooks for each team. If you want to get the digital magazine along with your hard copy you can purchase it here on PhilSteele.com.
