Rating the 2014 Non-Conference Slate: Prologue

It's that time again! We're less than a week away from the start of the season, so let's kick it off with our annual take on pre-season previews: a ranking of every major team's out-of-conference schedule.

Continuing from last year, we are now only ranking the "Power 5" conferences: the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC. The only non-Power 5 teams with ratings were Cincinnati (0.25), Notre Dame (1), BYU (0.25), and Boise State (0.5).


What's that rating, you ask? That's our basically subjective "legit" appeal rating, essentially we're trying to capture how excited a theoretical school might be about playing another school. The rating is a number between 0 and 1, with increments in 0.25.

Last year we gave out a stingy 15 "1" ratings. We apparently felt more generous this time around and gave out 22 "1" ratings. The following schools received a "1": Clemson, Florida State, Miami, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Oregon, Stanford, Southern California, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana State, South Carolina, and Texas Agricultural and Mechanical. For those scoring at home, that's 3 for the ACC, 4 for the Big 12, 4 for the Big Ten, 3 for the Pac-12, and 7 for the SEC.

Given that, the average rating for each conference probably won't be a huge surprise:

1. SEC (0.661)
2. Big 12 (0.639)
3. Pac-12 (0.521)
4. Big Ten (0.464)
5. ACC (0.482)

 So that's that. Next up: the ACC.