And this time I was right! This is totally not the Big 12. See, for starters, there are twelve teams, so it’s obviously the Big Ten. Sheesh.

1. Ohio State (1.25 legit, 0 DI-AA): Akron, Toledo, @Miami, Colorado. You have to feel for the Buckeyes, and their back-and-forth saga over the past few weeks. When the massive scandal at Miami broke, surely OSU partisans gave themselves a chance against a depleted Hurricane squad. Well, not any more, as most of the current players involved have been suspended for only one game while the Ohio 5 Minus One will still be on the bench. Even so, they should still beat the other three OOC teams.
2. Michigan (1, 0): Western Michigan, Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan, San Diego State. Here by virtue of not playing any DI-AA teams, pretty much.
3. Pennsylvania State (1, 1): Indiana State, Alabama, @Temple, Eastern Michigan. If it weren’t for the Sycamores (a.k.a, “Hey, remember when Larry Bird went here?” State University) this would probably be the best schedule in the Big Ten, despite the rating. It may well still be. I’ll touch on this throughout the season, but I think Alabama will be back in a big way this year.
4. Minnesota (1, 1): @Southern California, New Mexico State, Miami, North Dakota State. The rating isn’t wrong – that’s the Miami in Oxford, OH. Unfortunately for the Gophers, a sign of progress will probably be solidly beating NMSU and NDSU, much less this particular Miami (not to mention USC).
5. Michigan State (1, 1): Youngstown State, Florida Atlantic, @Notre Dame, Central Michigan. Well, CMU just isn’t the same with Dan “Rust Belt Tebow” LeFevour, so pretty much all to get excited about here is the road trip to South Bend.
6. Purdue (1, 1): Middle Tennessee State, @Rice, Southeast Missouri State, Notre Dame. Rated below Michigan State because they get the Irish at home.
7. Wisconsin (0.75, 1): Nevada-Las Vegas, Oregon State, N-Northern Illinois, South Dakota. I think the only way to get a team more opposite of Wisconsin matched up is if they played Oregon itself, but this will have to do.
8. Iowa (0.75, 1): Tennessee Tech, @Iowa State, Pittsburgh, Louisiana-Monroe. I have a feeling we underrated Pitt this year, but years of mediocrity of under the Wannstache can do that.
9. Illinois (0.5, 1): Arkansas State, South Dakota State, Arizona State, Western Michigan. Did you know that Ron Zook is still actually the head coach at Illinois? Yeah, I know! I’m as surprised as you are. Well, suffice it to say that if UIUC managed to drop any of these games beside Arizona State he might finally get canned. And what happened to that matchup against Mizzou? That was fun.
10. Northwestern (0.5, 1): @Boston College, Eastern Illinois, @Army, Rice. Well, they’re Northwestern. Can you blame them?
11. Nebraska (0.5, 1): Tennessee-Chattanooga, Fresno State, Washington, @Wyoming. I think the most wrong I was about anything all of last season was the damn Holiday Bowl, when Washington stomped on Nebraska. But seriously, I still don’t see how the Huskers won’t end up 4-0 against this schedule. Well, unless the Wyoming home brown unis simply beat them into submission with ugliness. (Note: they are objectively ugly. I like them, personally, but I also enjoyed using pink/purple/green as a motif in my Create-A-School teams in old versions of NCAA football.)
12. Indiana (0.5, 1): N-Ball State, Virginia, South Carolina State, @North Texas. The game with Ball State is in Indianapolis, which is understandable. Less so is the road trip to Denton, which I hope was a 2-for-1.

And next, at long last, the Big 12. Provided it still exists tomorrow.

I accidentally said that the Big 12 would be next. What I actually meant was that the Big East would be next. Whoops! Let’s get this out of the way then.

1. Pittsburgh (2.5 legit, 1 DI-AA): Buffalo, Maine, @Iowa, Notre Dame, Utah. There aren’t very many strong schedules in college football this year. Sure, Buffalo and Maine are gimmes, but a road date with Iowa and home games with Notre Dame and Utah make this a worthy schedule. (I have to admit: I forgot Utah was in the Pac-12 this year when I first computed Pitt’s rating.) If Pitt and WVU can get their acts together, each could go into the Backyard Brawl on November 25th with a shot at the national title on the line.
2. South Florida (2, 1): @Notre Dame, Ball State, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical, Texas-El Paso, Mami. I wonder if Miami fans imagine having a rivalry with USF based on actually being in South Florida instead of Tampa. Anyway, between “da U” and a road date with Notre Dame, this is one of the stronger schedules in the Big East.
3. West Virginia (1.5, 1): Marshall, Norfolk State, @Maryland, Louisiana State, Bowling Green State. West Virginia fans in Baton Rouge? I don’t think I would want to be there personally, but I can imagine there will be some great stories from this mixture of two of the craziest fanbases in college football. If it’s a night game (and by all rights, it should be), Baton Rogue may well be leveled by sunrise. The road game in College Park is just frosting on the crazy cake, but if WVU can sweep this schedule they will have a shot at a darkhorse national title run.
4. Syracuse (1.25, 1): Wake Forest, Rhode Island, @Southern California, Toledo, @Tulane. At USC is obviously the highlight here. This is why I usually rank the schedules by their averages, because having five non-conference opponents really dilutes schedules in the Big East. Thankfully, TCU will remedy that next year.
5. Cincinnati (1.25, 1): Austin Peay, @Tennessee, Akron, North Carolina State, @Miami. Yes, USC+Wake Forest beat out Tennessee+NC State. Sorry. Also, that is a road game in Oxford, Ohio. I would imagine there’ll be a lot of Bearcat fans in attendance, though.
6. Louisville (1, 1): Murray State, Florida International, @Kentucky, Marshall, @North Carolina. Sweet, I can make the “I wish this were a basketball game” joke twice this year for Louisville! Provided what I just said doesn’t count, of course.
7. Rutgers (0.5, 1): North Carolina Central, @North Carolina, Ohio, Navy, N-Army. Playing both service academies doesn’t really seem patriotic so much as searching for two easy wins. Of course, considering how Rutgers is doing these days, the Navy game could be kind of dicey.
8. Connecticut (0.5, 1): Fordham, @Vanderbilt, Iowa State, @Buffalo, Western Michigan. Vandy and Iowa State are about as low as you can go and still claim you play two BCS conference teams. I guess Duke wasn’t available, or they would be on here as well.

Next time is still the not Big 12, as the Big Ten is rightfully next in alphabetical order. So, until then!

As a group this year, ACC teams have the 3rd most prestigious non-conference schedules in the country. Sadly, the ACC also has the only major conference school that plays two DI-AA (better known these days as DI-FCS) teams, North Carolina State.

So how do the individual schools rank? Below I provide their “legit” average and number of DI-AA teams played. Ties are broken by number of DI-AA teams played and then arbitrarily.

1. Florida State (2 legit, 1 DI-AA): Louisiana-Monroe, Charleston Southern, Oklahoma, @Florida. Florida is a rivalry game of course, but the main reason FSU comes out on top two years in a row is the conclusion of the series with Oklahoma. It doesn’t hurt that the Sooners are also the pre-season consensus number one team. I don’t generally put a lot of stock in the pre-season polls (other than examining their undue influence on the polls later in the season), but remember this is more about prestige than any real objective criteria.
2. Maryland (2, 1): West Virginia, Temple, Towson, N-Notre Dame. I just spent 20 minutes trying to figure out whether the Notre Dame game at Landover, MD is a true neutral site game. I think it is. I also just realized I don’t really have anything else to say about this schedule.
3. Clemson (1.75, 1): Troy, Wofford, Auburn, @South Carolina. We get Tigers-Tigers once again, and this time at Clemson. I was tempted just now to refer to Clemson as the “purple” tigers to distinguish them from Auburn, but then I realized it’s not really unique because LSU uses purple as well. Go figure.
4. Miami (1.75, 1): Ohio State, Kansas State, Bethun-Cookman, @South Florida. Most folks figure the kickoff of the season will put an end to the “here’s a list of everything that is wrong with college athletics and why” articles that have dominated the off-season. That’ll all be back for one last gasp during the week leading up to Miami-Ohio State, I’ll bet.
5. Wake Forest (1.5, 1): @Syracuse, Gardner-Webb, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt. Technically, Wake Forest plays more BCS conference teams than any other team in the ACC. Technically.
6. Boston College (1.25, 1): Northwestern, @Central Florida, Massachusetts, @Notre Dame. Yes, the tiebreaker here really was Northwestern over Kansas. I’m not proud of that, but I’d say Notre Dame and Georgia are a push for neutral fans. Unless UGA actually lives up to the hype this year. Well, same goes for Notre Dame I suppose.
7. Georgia Tech (1.25, 1): Western Carolina, @Middle Tennessee State, Kansas, Georgia. I’m not excited about this non-conference slate. For those of you scoring at home, the game in Murfeesboro is part of a 2-for-1 deal. Man, I hope we beat Kansas this year.
8. Duke (0.75, 1): Richmond, Stanford, Tulane, @Florida International. If Duke can manage to win three of these games (I’ll leave it to the viewers at home to determine which of the three are even possible) they’ll be halfway to bowl eligibility! Though that would still require some massive upsets in at least one or two of their conference games (also left as an exercise to the viewer).
9. North Carolina (0.5, 1): James Madison, Rutgers, @East Carolina, Louisville. I keep thinking ECU is in the Big East. Remember, folks, when TCU joins next year they could instantly be the best team in the Big East.
10. North Carolina State (0.5, 2): Liberty, South Alabama, @Cincinnati, Central Michigan. This sure is a schedule all right. This is USA’s (U-S-A! U-S-A!) first ever year of college football. Liberty is also a gimme. Though thanks to the two DI-AA games, NCSU will need 7 wins to be bowl eligible (with the 2 DI-AA games a given, that is), which they should end up with. If not, Tom O’Brien should be fired.
11. Virginia (0.25, 1): William & Mary, @Indiana, Southern Miss, Idaho. UVA is, unfortunately, not traveling to the Kibbie Dome this year. I just like saying that. KIBBIE DOME. The other parts of this schedule are really boring.
12. Virginia Tech (0, 1): Appalachian State, @East Carolina, Arkansas State, Marshall. Nothing like kicking off your darkhorse national title run with a signature win over… oh, wait. There aren’t any signature wins here. There aren’t any games to be excited about. And yet, VPI could well beat Appy State and ECU by a combined total of 8 points the way they tend to play down to these kind of teams sometimes. An embarrassing schedule for the only ranked ACC team.

That’s a wrap, finally. Up next, what remains of the Big 12. Stay tuned!

The rules from 2008 still apply, so let’s do this.

As per usual, let’s run down the list of “1”s, that is, the teams we feel are the most desirable to play this year: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Miami (whoops), Michigan, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State (double whoops), Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Penn State, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Southern Cal, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

By conference, that’s 3 for the ACC, 4 for the Big 12, 1 for the Big East, 5 for the Big Ten, 1 for the Mountain West, 2 for the Pac-12, and 5 for the SEC.

Taking the entire set of teams for each conference into account, you get the follow averages:

1. SEC (0.771 average)
2. Big 12 (0.65)
3. Big Ten (0.64583)
4. ACC (0.625)
5. Pac-12 (0.604)
6. Big East (0.4375)

The Big 12 seemed to benefit in a big way from gaining another “1” and also losing some dead weight in the form of Colorado, it appears. The Pac-12 didn’t get worse so much as everyone else got a little better, well, except for the Big East, which is hurt by having UConn, Louisville, Rutgers, and Syracuse getting 0.25’s this year (the lowest possible rating for a BCS conference team).

We’ll spend the next seven posts or so examining each conference individually and wrapping things up, as per usual, hopefully in time for the start of the season. First, as usual, is the Atlantic Coast Conference.