In 2023 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 ACC plays an 8-game schedule and so no team has an edge with extra home games or fewer away games unlike the Big Ten and Big 12 which play nine game conference schedules.
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 544-544 50.0% so unlike last year where some teams came in from the Pac 12 or American conference everything is equal this year and the math adds up!
Last year I pointed out that the ACC figured to have some changes so the record may not be the most important indicator but it helps. As an example, last year I said I felt Clemson and Miami were teams that would be at or near the top of the league but in ’23 they were just 4-4 and 3-5 in ACC play so were counted as middle of the road teams using this method. This year is you draw Florida St you get credit for a playing a 1-7 team but I think they will be in the upper third of the ACC this year.
In this category Syracuse faces the toughest schedule with their opponents 41-23 in ACC play last year for 64.1% with the next closest being Boston College and Louisville who come in at 37-27 57.8%. If you are a Virginia Cavalier fan, you should like that Virginia’s ACC opponents were just 24-40 in league play last year! The next closest is Virginia Tech whose ACC foes were 27-37 42.2% in league play last year.
I have the chart color coded. Now, you may disagree with my ratings, but these are my post spring numbers, and 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 Clemson, Miami, Louisville 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 and it was tough to put either Boston College or Virginia in this category but if you separate my Power Poll into 3 categories, they fell into the bottom one.
This is where this year’s schedule disparity stands out. There are four teams in the ACC that are playing three top level teams and that did influence my conference predictions for Syracuse, Boston College and Louisville.
There are 5 teams that face just one of the power teams and the team that has the best schedule on paper is North Carolina which avoids Miami, SMU and Louisville and draws 4 of the teams that made it into my Green category.
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.
This year’s Phil Steele College Football Preview is 360 pages, and we went to the press later than usual on June 6th so we were able to capture all the transfer portal moves (transfer portal closed April 30). It has the most up to date rosters, three to four times the amount of information of any other College Football Preview. Don’t waste your gas driving around looking for the magazine, it is EXCLUSIVELY at Barnes and Nobles and Books-a-Million this year. You can also order online at PhilSteele.com and when you order on line you get the hard copy but also the digital copy for FREE and the digital copy is updated thru September. Check back for new blogs almost each and every day this summer!
.
