Now that the season is over - I wonder who had the toughest schedule in College Football...
The Irish beat the #5, #6, #10, #21, #26, #28, and #35; and lost to the #1
I'm guessing OSU, but the Irish are probably 2nd toughest.
Replies to: Now that the season is over - I wonder who had the toughest schedule in College Football...
ND's schedule was awful this year
Worst schedule I can recall in the last thirty years. Not the AD's office fault, but I would be surprised if it was top 90 in difficulty.
Weak by ND standards but not by comparison to other CFP teams..
For example, of our 14 wins 10 were over teams with winning records..by comparison of PSU 13 wins only 6 were over teams with winning records and 7 of their wins were against teams that were less than .500.
Miami bagging us and SC and FSU sucking didn’t help.
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100% but even with that, 12 of 16 teams we played were in Bowls/CFP
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SOS ~40th before playoffs. Lack of true elite opponents, but most teams were decent/bowl-eligible
ND did not have an easy schedule, but they were favored every game after TAMU and won every game but Louisville by 2 scores. ND ended regular season with Top 5 Strength of Record however. Having a hard SOS doesn't really mean much if you lose the games.
Elite Opponents - Top 10 caliber team
None
Solid opponents - Top 25 caliber team (In an average year of outcomes with this team and staff they'd finish Top 25 but not Top 10)
TAMU - lost a play-in game to Texas for SEC championship
Louisville - Very good team that would make boneheaded mistakes to lose
USC - winning in 4Q in every loss except vs Irish. Elite talent
GT - took UGA with Beck to 8 overtimes
Army/Navy - Both finished with 10+ wins and beat some decent opponents
Mediocre - Bowl worthy (in an average year of outcomes with this team and staff they'd make a bowl)
Miami OH - ended up stringing together some decent wins
Virginia - perennial bowl worthy
NIU - ended up stringing together some decent wins
Shitty opponents - In an average year they'd miss a bowl
Stanford - terrible
Purdue - FCS level
FSU - no way we could have known
40th is a pretty decent schedule. Many of the teams with higher SOS had 1-3 elite opponents, but the bulk of their schedule was similar or easier to ND.
That doesn't really matter in the playoff era.
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Comparing schedules including 4 rounds of playoffs is silly.
Of course, ND and OSU are going to have the toughest or near toughest including those.
UCLA played 3 of the top 10 teams in the final ranking during the regular season plus LSU.
Georgia played 3 of the top 11 plus Clemson.
The victories that matter are playoff victories.
Your UCLA scenario is irrelevant.
So deep, Kidnapper.
Strength of schedule has nothing to do with games that matter.
Re: Now that the season is over - I wonder who had the toughest schedule in College Football..
I have us as beating #2, #4, #8, #15, #19, #20, #24
..but Tosu beat #1, #3, #5(us), #7 (plus the same two that are #4 & #8 for us when they were #3 & #5)
The way I like to compare schedules though is line up all opponents played from best record to worst and compare how many teams above .500 were played & beaten vs how many below .500.
I was going off the final AP Poll
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Link: https://www.espn.com/college-football/rankings
Final AP Poll is bizarre, no teams dropped out of rankings from December
Even though several had bad bowl losses
Ok, I go by ranking when they played because..
that's how everyone who tracks ranked wins historically does it.
I love this site for looking at historical records, etc..except they use the AP ranking only from 1936 on..but I think once CFP Ranking comes out it should be the go to ranking at that point in the season.
Link: https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/notre-dame/2024-schedule.html
I prefer to go by ranking after the end of the regular season
Rankings near the beginning of the season can be hit or miss. FSU and USC are examples. If ND had played FSU or USC at the start, they would have beaten two ranked teams. To each his own, however.
That's just not how anyone who tracks it from a historical perspective..
does it.
It also creates the dilemma of..if you beat the #1 team to drop them down to #5, did you not beat the #1 team? How would anyone ever claim a win over a #1 team unless you beat them and they don't drop?
Keep in mind a ranking is not some factually and analytically infallible measure of how good a team is (its a reflectionof the teams popularity at that momentin time), however when two ranked teams play each other and one is #10 and one is #20 when they meet, that ranking number (regardless how accurate or inaccurate) is a historical "fact".
I think a blend of approaches is good, especially when teams final ranking is markedly worse
Sometimes teams drop because of injuries or bad luck.
Usually they drop because they were overrated - think Pitt/Michigan/Oklahoma this year.
Thanks - Makes sense -
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Ha, I was thinking about this last night, OSU had to be the only team beating more high ranked teams
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