Rating the 2008 Non-Conference Slate, Part 4: Big XII

Onward, to everyone’s favorite red-meat conference, the Big XII.

  1. Colorado (2 legit, 1 DI-AA): (N)Colorado State, Eastern Washington, @Florida State, West Virginia. Gets an edge over Baylor since FSU and WVU are better than Washington State, Wake Forest, and UConn. Also, Colorado is not Baylor.
  2. Baylor (2, 1): Wake Forest, Northwestern State, Washington State, @Connecticut. Good job getting 3 BCS teams, though I have to wonder if it’s because they’re being scheduled as a BCS-patsy.
  3. Oklahoma (1.25, 1): Tennessee-Chattanooga, Cincinnati, @Washington, Texas Christian. Not as exciting as Nebraska’s schedule, but 2 BCS teams give the Sooners a slight edge. The away game also helps, and TCU isn’t terrible.
  4. Nebraska (1, 0): Western Michigan, San Jose State, New Mexico State, Virginia Tech. This is pretty much Virginia Tech and nothing else. Don’t get me wrong, this is another one of those inter-sectional matchups I like to see, but the rest of the schedule sucks, even if there are no DI-AA teams on it.
  5. Texas (1, 0): Florida Atlantic, @Texas-El Paso, Arkansas, Rice. Texas pretends it’s in the SWC again and schedules an away game in El Paso for some reason. Nonetheless, they’ll go 4-0 against this slate.
  6. Texas A&M (0.75, 0): Arkansas State, @New Mexico, Miami (FL), Army. Reprises the Miami game from last year, otherwise, not much going on here. Though @UNM raises an eyebrow.
  7. Missouri 0.75, 1): (N)Illinois, Southeast Missouri State, Nevada, Buffalo. I like the Illinois game. Not so much everything else.
  8. Oklahoma State (0.75, 1): (N)Washington State, Houston, Missouri State, Troy. I’m not going to look it up, but I imagine the Wazzou neutral-site game is in Seattle. Nothin’ much else going on here.
  9. Kansas (0.75, 1): Florida International, Louisiana Tech, @South Florida, Sam Houston State. Man, these schedules are rapidly going downhill. I don’t really have an opinion on this schedule either way, other than that there’s not much to look forward to here.
  10. Kansas State (0.5, 1): Louisiana-Lafayette, Montana State, @Louisville, North Texas. And less so here, though I’m trying to remember my logic that ranked South Florida ahead of Louisville. Oh well.
  11. Iowa State (0.5, 1): South Dakota State, Kent State, @Iowa, @Nevada-Las Vegas. Well, at least they’re not getting scheduled as a BCS patsy. Yet.
  12. Texas Tech (0, 1): Tulsa, @Nevada, Southern Methodist, Massachusetts. This isn’t quite as bad as Indiana’s schedule, but the TTU machine should have no problems putting up at least 150 points on this bunch.