And it is time, finally, for the Southeastern Conference. Fun fact: every SEC team plays a DI-AA team this year.

1. Louisiana State (2 legit, 1 DI-AA): N-Oregon, Northwestern State, @West Virginia, Western Kentucky. Mea culpa: apparently when I wrote the WVU preview I said that game would be in Baton Rouge. Well, it isn’t. Flip everything around and what I wrote still applies, I think. As for the Oregon game, go look at the Pac-12 post.
2. Georgia (1.5, 1): N-Boise State, Coastal Carolina, New Mexico State, @Georgia Tech. Man, I really hope Boise wins. That’s all I got for this.
3. Alabama (1, 1): Kent State, @Pennsylvania State, North Texas, Georgia Southern. A rare, but highly encouraged, SEC-Big Ten matchup with two traditional powers meeting. Always in favor of that. Also, at least this GSU won’t be quite the punching bag the other one was.
4. Arkansas (1, 1): Missouri State, New Mexico, Troy, N-Texas Agricultural and Mechanical. Even though it is part of a now long-running series, I still put Arkansas over Florida because the TAMU game isn’t required.
5. Florida (1, 1): Florida Atlantic, Alabama-Birmingham, Furman, Florida State. Unlike the Florida-Florida State game. This is pretty much a bare minimum schedule right here.
6. Auburn (0.75, 1): Utah State, @Clemson, Florida Atlantic, Samford. Again, see the above, re: optional OOC games versus rivalry games.
7. South Carolina (0.75, 1): N-East Carolina, Navy, Citadel, Clemson. East Carolina keeps fooling me. They should just join the Big East already.
8. Mississippi (0.5, 1): Brigham Young, Southern Illinois, @Fresno State, Louisiana Tech. This is almost kind of a real schedule for Ole Miss. BYU and a road game to a west coast school? Almost downright unheard of.
9. Tennessee (0.5, 1): Montana, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Middle Tennessee State. Not much to see here, moving on.
10. Vanderbilt (0.5, 1): Elon, Connecticut, Army, @Wake Forest. Well, even Vandy has to start from somewhere, and at least they’ve got a schedule that they should at least break even with.
11. Kentucky (0.25, 1): N-Western Kentucky, Central Michigan, Louisville, Jacksonville State. Note that the Louisville game is a rivalry game. Are these guys even trying? Note that the Western Kentucky game is at a neutral site: Nashville. I’m not sure who thought it’d be great for two Kentucky schools to play a game in Tennessee. For a long time I’ve joked that Memphis is actually the capital of Mississippi – maybe Nashville serves a similar role for their neighbors to the north?
12. Mississippi State (0, 1): @Memphis, Louisiana Tech, @Alabama-Birmingham, Tennessee-Martin. I wonder someone hoodwinked the Bulldogs into thinking Alabama still plays a couple of home games at Legion Field every year and didn’t realize they were going to play UAB until the schedule for this year had to be published.

Next up, some final thoughts. 

As per usual, the Pacific 12 leads the land in terms of scheduling out-of-conference teams. Somewhat bizarrely, though, they elected to keep the 9 game conference schedule despite now having 12 teams. I like having 9 conference games when that means the conference will play a full round-robin, but otherwise I’m not sure it makes sense. Yes, it produces more meaningful games, but otherwise there’s not a meaningful upside.

1. Southern California (1.5 legit, 0 DI-AA): Minnesota, Syracuse, @Notre Dame. USC always plays pretty decent OOC schedules, but this is about as low as you can currently go and say you schedule three BCS conference teams short of scheduling Vanderbilt and Duke.
2. Oregon State (1.5, 1): Sacramento State, @Wisconsin, Brigham Young. Nonetheless, the three BCS teams are sufficient to beat out Oregon State’s Wisconsin and BYU combo, though playing a DI-AA team certainly doesn’t help.
3. Stanford (1.25, 0): San Jose State, @Duke, Notre Dame. Well, they have Notre Dame on the schedule. In reality, their ticket to the national title game will probably be decided when they play Oregon.
4. Colorado (1.5, 0): @Hawaii, California, N-Colorado State, @Ohio State. Yes, that’s four non-conference games due to the Hawaii rule. Oh yeah, there’s also that bizarre already scheduled Cal game that is now a non-conference conference game. Strangeness all around. Remember, though I show the raw “legit” score this ranking is actually based on the average, which means the extra OOC game is accounted for (and hence why they rank below Stanford).
5. California-Los Angeles (1, 0): @Houston, San Jose State, Texas. This may actually be pretty tough for UCLA. Considering their defensive woes Case Keenum could well break the NCAA passing record in this game alone.
6. Oregon (1, 1): N-Louisiana State, Nevada, Missouri State. Oregon-LSU has to be one of the top intersectional matchups of the year. Yes, there’s also UGA-Boise State. That game, though, will lack Oregon’s frenetic offensive pace up against the “they have no idea what the hell they’re doing” pace of Les Miles and co.
7. Washington (1, 1): Eastern Washington, Hawaii, @Nebraska. Washington’s prospects in the return trip to Lincoln look, shall we say, dim.
8. Arizona State (1, 1): California-Davis, Missouri, @Illinois. Funny how, in a year where Missouri and Illinois stop their renewed series, Arizona State manages to play both. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.
9. Utah (1, 1): Montana State, @Brigham Young, @Pittsburgh. Utah will try to earn its newfound major conference cred by beating the team that arguably launched it to where it is today, Pitt.
10. Arizona (1, 1): Northern Arizona, @Oklahoma State, Louisiana-Lafayette. I can’t think of anything funny to say about this schedule, so moving on.
11. California (0.25, 1): N-Fresno State, @Colorado, Presbyterian. Again, yes, that Colorado game is not a Pac-12 game. Whoops! Also, Presbyterian is located in Clinton, South Carolina, which is a heck of a long way from Berkeley in more ways than just distance, I would suspect.
12. Washington State (0, 1): Idaho State, Nevada-Las Vegas, @San Diego State. Well, there’s at least one win on this schedule for Paul Wulff and Co.

Next up, the SEC, and followed by a quick wrap-up.

Now, finally, here is the Big 12. Well, hopefully. It could well cease to exist by the time I finish writing this.

1. Oklahoma (1 legit, 0 DI-AA): Tulsa, @Florida State, Ball State. Oklahoma-Florida State may turn out to be one of the most pivotal games of the year for the preseason #1 team, because the rest of this OOC schedule won’t be. Still, though, the single game in Tallahassee was enough to vault the Sooners over Texas for the #1 spot here.
2. Texas (1, 0): Rice, Brigham Young, @California-Los Angeles. Quantity does not always beat quality. Though we did rate newly independent BYU this year, Texas should still handle them and moribund UCLA.
3. Baylor (1, 1): Texas Christian, Stephen F. Austin, Rice. It’s the Robert Griffin show down in Waco. Will it be enough to get them past TCU?
4. Iowa State (1, 1): Northern Iowa, Iowa, @Connecticut. Well, at least Iowa and Iowa State will no longer be playing for that awful corn trophy. I have a feeling we kind of hated on the Hawkeyes in our ratings, but oh well.
5. Kansas State (1, 1): Eastern Kentucky, Kent State, @Miami. Yes, this is that Miami. Otherwise this schedule is very Bill Synder-esque, which leads me to think that once Miami slides off the rotation we’ll see the K-State schedules of old.
6. Texas Agricultural and Mechanical (0.75, 1): Southern Methodist, Idaho, N-Arkansas. Once again, a school shuns the deafening environment of KIBBIE DOME by cowardly playing away from the CRUCIBLE OF POTATO PAIN. I still like the on-going series with Arkansas at Jerry Jones’s Intergalactic Space Palace, though.
7. Kansas (0.75, 1): McNeese State, Northern Illinois, @Georgia Tech. A good first step for KU would probably be to actually beat their DI-AA opponent this year. (No comment on the part where they beat us.)
8. Oklahoma State (0.5, 0): Louisiana-Lafayette, Arizona, @Tulsa. In case you’re wondering, it’s about 71.4 miles from Stillwater to Tulsa. Google Maps also tells me it takes an 1:14 to drive there, which given the way these two teams will probably sling the ball around may be how long it takes to play each quarter.
9. Missouri (0.5, 1): Miami, @Arizona State, Western Illinois. That’s the Miami in Oxford, OH. There’s also a game in Tempe, which is nice, I guess.
10. Texas Tech (0, 1): Texas State, @New Mexico, Nevada. Last year, that Nevada game probably would’ve been fun. As far as New Mexico goes, well, the team’s coach probably has a better chance of literally punching you in the mouth than his football team figuratively does.

Sorry if it feels like I’m a bit of a hurry, but well, that’s because I am. Anyway, next up is the Pac-12!

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!