Phil Steele ranks Kentucky's schedule fourth-toughest

Daily Blog •August 24, 2012
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Every year in my magazine, one of the more popular articles is “Who Plays the Toughest Schedule?”

At the beginning of the season, the NCAA usually releases a rating of each team’s schedule based on their opponents’ win/loss record from the previous season. This is a good method but it does have its obvious flaws.

The first flaw is basing the ratings on opponent’s records from the PREVIOUS season. Last year I had Houston in my Top 25 and they finished 13-1 and ranked #18. I also had Georgia and Clemson on my Most Improved Teams List and counted them as a ranked tm for the upcoming schedule and they finished the regular season ranked #12 and #21. If you used the NCAA method you only got credit for playing 3 tms with losing records (all below .500 in ‘10).

The second flaw is basing it on pure overall records. If a team played an FCS school that was 11-1 in 2007, that counted as a MUCH tougher game in the NCAA ratings than facing a team like Alabama who was 7-6 in ‘07 but #1 at the end of ‘08 regular season! My ratings had Bama ranked as a MUCH tougher team than any FCS foe.

My rankings take two major factors into account. The first is my 9 sets of Power Ratings. This ensures that an FCS team is rated much lower than Ohio St or USF, two teams that finished with losing records last year!

The second factor is the amount of home and away games played. As an example, this year some teams will have as many as 8 home games, while others play as many as 8 on the road. Last year Central Michigan played 7 road games and this year they have 7 at home.

After my magazine went to press in Mid-May, I was going over my Toughest Schedule article and I think I found a minor flaw in my own ratings which severely punishes teams like Florida St who plays not one but TWO FCS opponents this year. An FCS team’s power rating is much lower than even a bottom-tier MAC/Sun Belt/WAC team. In Florida St’s case Savannah St is among the bottom teams in the FCS so their ranking was downgraded significantly. The Seminoles came in at #70 in my Toughest Schedule and that got me thinking that if it were down to Florida St or a SEC/Big 12 team for the last spot in the national title game, the Noles weak schedule would really hurt them in the minds of the voters and in the computer ratings.

With this in mind I wanted to come up with a different way at judging strength of schedule (SOS) by analyzing how many national title contenders, darkhorse national title contenders, ranked teams, ranked teams on the road and the number of bowl teams and bowl teams on the road that a team plays in a season. Basically, this is weighing the best teams a team may play in the upcoming season and eliminates some of the very weak teams they play.

First category I decided to look at was National Title Contenders. In my opinion the SEC this year has six legitimate national title contenders while the Big 10 does not have any. Here are the teams that play the most national title contenders.
# of National Title Contenders
Team #
Mississippi 4
Kentucky 4
South Carolina 4
Florida 4
LSU 4
Tennessee 4
Missouri 4
Auburn 4
Texas A&M 3
Arkansas 3
Mississippi St 3
Washington 3
Vanderbilt 3
Notre Dame 2
California 2
Alabama 2
Arizona 2
Arizona St 2
Clemson 2
Colorado 2
Stanford 2
Georgia 2

Only 22 teams play two or more National Title Contenders with naturally the SEC dominating this list. One of the main reasons why I picked a Florida St vs Oklahoma National Title game was the fact that LSU plays four legitimate national title contenders this year while Florida St and Oklahoma play one.
http://www.philsteele.com/Blogs/2012/Aug12/DBAug24.html

And to look down the rest of his report UL was ranked at 84th best schedule and no teams that they play that could win a National Championship.

Hmmm. He says we have 8 bowl worthy teams. Wonder who he's leaving out?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Catfan73

Hmmm. He says we have 8 bowl worthy teams. Wonder who he's leaving out?

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Cat if you look to the left he also says that UK has 5 bowl worthy teams on the road which means I guess that all 5 road game those teams will and can make bowl games.

Absolutely gonna be a tough year guys. Brutal schedule.

But I do find myself a little more encouraged than usual this year for some reason.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bluesuedeshoes

Absolutely gonna be a tough year guys. Brutal schedule.

But I do find myself a little more encouraged than usual this year for some reason.

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Same for me. It is hard to pinpoint why I feel that way, but I hope the feeling continues for a few months.;)