- Southern California (1 legit, 0 FCS): Fresno State, @Boston College, Notre Dame. USC is number one here, even with the "yearly rivalry game caveat" from playing Notre Dame, mostly because I feel like Fresno State and Boston College combined are better than UVA and Memphis.
- California-Los Angeles (1, 0): @Virginia, Memphis, N-Texas. The neutral site game with Texas is cool, but Virginia and Memphis may do well to break 10 points combined against UCLA.
- Oregon (1, 1): South Dakota, Michigan State, Wyoming. In all honesty, the Oregon-Michigan State game is probably more intriguing than any single one of USC's or UCLA's games, but in those cases quantity and a lack of FCS opponents means I had to put them on top.
- Utah (1, 1): Idaho State, Fresno State, @Michigan. Utah can figure out how to play old MWC foe Fresno State (who might well beat them this year) but not Utah State and/or BYU? Then again, perhaps I'm speaking too soon, it looks like the Aggies will be back next year and then in 2016 through 2018 the Stormin' Mormons will return.
- Stanford (1, 1): California-Davis, Army, @Notre Dame. In reality, Stanford and Arizona State's schedules are pretty much a tie, though chances are going to South Bend is probably the slightly more difficult draw.
- Arizona State (1, 1): Weber State, @New Mexico, Notre Dame. Somehow, a game at New Mexico is not actually the Pac-12's oddest road game of the year.
- California (0.75, 1): @Northwestern, Sacramento State, Brigham Young. If this game had been played a year earlier, Cal probably would've been put a little higher, but Northwestern falling apart after the loss to Ohio State last year also dropped their legit rating.
- Arizona (0, 0): Nevada-Las Vegas, @Texas-San Antonio, Nevada. The Wildcats usually don't have a great schedule, so I suppose they deserve some kudos for not having any FCS teams. That said, UTSA just dropped the "transitional" tag, so they sort of got lucky there.
- Colorado (0, 0): N-Colorado State, @Massachusetts, Hawaii. I guess going on the road to UMass isn't that great either, but good on the Minutemen for securing two home games against Power 5 teams.
- Washington State (0, 1): N-Rutgers, @Nevada, Portland State. I've just run out of things to say about teams playing odd road games at this point, though I admit I'm a little biased because I don't think that playing Nevada is as "bad" as UTSA or UMass for some reason.
- Washington (0, 1): @Hawaii, Eastern Washington, Illinois. Inexplicable road game I'd like to see: someone playing on Eastern Washington's blood-red turf. Alas. (It looks even "better" on TV, since the field usually just fills up the screen.)
- Oregon State (0, 1): Portland State, @Hawaii, San Diego State. Also, in case you're wondering, Hawaii gets a pass from me since, hey, I'm not going to blame anyone for wanting to go on an expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Rating the 2014 Non-Conference State: Pac-12
The margins between these teams are pretty thin in terms of OOC schedule quality this year. Here's my attempt at sorting them out.
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