Rating the 2017 Non-Conference Slate: Epilogue

Okay, we've gone through each conference, so where does that leave us? Well, first, if you'd like to view them all again, then click here to see all the posts under the "ooc schedules" tag.

Otherwise, we've got this part down to a ritual, so let's get started with the List of Shame, which consists of teams that played more than 1 FCS school. Once again, we have just one member of this club this year: Arkansas, thanks to them playing transitioning FCS-to-FBS team Coastal Carolina.

Ordinarily, this is where I'd put the list of schedules I really like. The problem is this year the only ones that come close are Florida State, Georgia Tech, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. See the problem there? Yeah, they're all only on there because they have a rivalry game against another team on the list, other than the Gamecocks. I feel like that defeats the purpose of the list. Honestly, while the playoff has given us more marquee out-of-conference games, at the same time conferences like the Big 12, Big Ten, and Pac-12 have gone to nine conference games. While I think that's great for those conferences, it's not great for the world of out-of-conference scheduling. That's basically 36 less out-of-conference games that happen every year, which means a better chance for better schedules. I may need to rethink my criteria for this list, but for now, I'm going to skip it.

Instead, let's see how the conferences all did a whole. This is an average of an average to account for the differences in the number of games each conference plays.

1. ACC (0.226)
2. SEC (0.192)
3. Big 12 (0.158)
4. Pac-12 (0.153)
5. Big Ten (0.151)

Last year the ACC was second on this list, and really it's more of a case that everyone got worse while the ACC stayed about the same. There's something to be said for consistency, though, so hopefully the Pac-12 can recover dropping from first to fourth.

And that does it for this year's preview! Up next, we've got the guide for this weekend's games!

Rating the 2017 Non-Conference Slate: SEC

Do as I did: pour yourself some Bourbon and take some sips of these out-of-conference schedules.

1. Florida (2 legit, 1 FCS): N-Michigan, Northern Colorado, Alabama-Birmingham, Florida State. Going on the road to play a lesser opponent is something you won't see the Gators do, that's for sure, so savor this rare inter-section matchup. Also, this is the first appearance of UAB in our preview, so even though they're going to get pummelled, let's give a hearty shout-out to the Blazers: they're back!
2. Georgia (1.75, 1): Appalachian State, @Notre Dame, Samford, @Georgia Tech. Georgia's going to South Bend, eh? Let's christen that the Unrealistic Expectations Bowl. Oh, wait, does Miami play them this year? Yes they do! Oh, the continuing delicious irony if Richt's new team betas the Domers and UGA can't... I actually don't know if that's ironic, but it's something that will make me happy as a GT fan, that's for sure.
3. South Carolina (1.25, 1): N-North Carolina State, Louisiana Tech, Wofford, Clemson. Before you get too excited about USC-NCSU, let's look at the scores from the last three times they played: 7-3, 34-0, and 10-0. Well, we can always hope they'll lose and beat the Bulldogs they play this year in the most amusing way possible, at least.
4. Auburn (1, 1): Georgia Southern, @Clemson, Mercer, Lousiana-Monroe. Unfortunately, this isn't really spicy Georgia Southern anymore, so you mostly have the return trip to Clemson to look forward to. Not that's a bad thing.
5. Alabama (1, 1): N-Florida State, Fresno State, Colorado State, Mercer. Well, outside of FSU this doesn't really do anything for the Tide, but when have they ever needed the boost a good out-of-conference slate can provide?
6. Texas A&M (1, 1): @California-Los Angeles, Nicholls State, Louisiana-Lafayette, New Mexico. Again, we applaud the inter-sectional matchup, but y'all just got beat out by the returning national champions and a national title favorite for this year. That's fair, I'd say.
7. Tennessee (0.75, 1): N-Georgia Tech, Indiana State, Massachusetts, Southern Mississippi. Remember, I ranked Tennessee above Kentucky because Kentucky plays Louisville every year, not because we're better than Louisville.
8. Kentucky (0.75, 1): @Southern Mississippi, Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Michigan, Louisville.
9. Arkansas (0.75, 1.5): Florida Agricultural and Mechanical, Texas Christian, New Mexico State, Coastal Carolina. The Chanticleers are moving up to FBS, so Arkansas gets the increasingly rare "half FCS" there. Also thanks to TAMU I had to double check that FAMU was still spelled out in the full name of the school. Oh yeah, they also play TCU which we fully applaud: SWC forever, baby! (Said no one.)
10. Vanderbilt (0.5, 1): @Middle Tennessee State, Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical, Kansas State, Western Kentucky. Alabama A&M also spells it out. Was that so hard, TAMU? Also, @MTSU is only a road game in the technical sense, as Murfeesboro isn't that far away. Though there'd probably be more Blue Raider fans there either way...
11. Louisiana State (0, 1): N-Brigham Young, Tennessee-Chattanooga, Syracuse, Troy State. I wasn't able to watch it last week, but I hope some time during last week's national broadcast of a UTC game they replayed the clip of Dan Mullen saying "Uuuuu-Teeeee Chattanooga!"
12. Mississippi (0, 1): South Alabama, Tennessee-Martin, @California, Louisiana-Lafayette. The people watching that weekend in Berkeley might be spectacular, so we'd like to wholly encourage continuing SEC-Pac-12 matchups.
13. Mississippi State (0, 1): Charleston Southern, @Louisiana Tech, Brigham Young, Massachusetts. Yeah, I don't think Dan Mullen is going to be able to make Charleston Southern roll off the tongue quite like he did with their FCS opponent last year. Also, going on the road to Ruston? That's spicy.
14. Missouri (0, 1): Missouri State, Purdue, Idaho, @Connecticut. There's bad OOC schedule, and then there's... this. Oof.

Okay, that's it! On to the wrap-up!

Rating the 2017 Non-Conference Slate: Pac-12

Okay, moving on to the West Coast, let's talk the Pac-12.

1. Stanford (1 legit, 0 FCS): N-Rice, @San Diego State, Notre Dame. This was a tough decision. I have, elsewhere, docked teams for having a team that they play every year, but as you can see from going down the list there's just not much here this year for the Pac-12. Also, San Diego State should be pretty good again this year, and Rice is still technically better than a FCS school.
2. Oregon (1, 1): Southern Utah, Nebraska, @Wyoming. Still, though, you could consider the Ducks tied for first. A good inter-sectional game and a road trip to Laramie? I'm down.
3. California (1, 1): @North Carolina, Weber State, Mississippi. You could even make an argument for Cal, which has the only schedule with two other Power 5 teams on. But then you consider that, well, it's Cal and you start thinking about their defense that is likely to remain a raging inferno this year (not in a good way).
4. California-Los Angeles (0.75, 0): Texas A&M, Hawaii, @Memphis. I guess we're just going to have to get used to these wacky road games, because even considering the vagaries of scheduling other FBS teams these days why in the world would UCLA ever go cross-country to play Memphis?
5. Southern California (0.75, 1): Stephen F. Austin, North Texas, @Texas Christian. USC usually is the team here with a tough OOC schedule, but instead this year I guess they decided to see if they could go 3-0 against the state of Texas. At least it's thematic!
6. Washington State (0.5, 1): Montana State, Boise State, Nevada. If the past two years have taught us anything, Wazzou could very well go 2-1 against this slate in just about any possible combination.
7. Arizona (0.25, 1): Northern Arizona, Houston, @Texas-El Paso. Both 'zonas figure to be miserable this year, and the misery could get ramped up real quick-like for the Bearcats. Depending on this shakes out, it could be a race to see which of their coaches makes it out of September.
8. Oregon State (0.25, 1): @Colorado State, Portland State, Minnesota. I could try to pretend that I don't know the result of that Oregon State-Colorado State game, but I don't think it was really that much of a surprise, and it's hard to take anything away from it as this is still the rebuild phase for the Beavers. That said, the rest of this schedule may not help.
9. Arizona State (0, 0): New Mexico State, San Diego State, @Texas Tech. Folks have tried to set Arizona State-Texas Tech as a sort of "who's gonna get fired?" Bowl, 2017 edition, and maybe that's the case, but the real test for the Sun Devils might be the San Diego State game. That, and Todd Graham isn't exactly known for letting the situation get to him before he gets out of the situation...
10. Utah (0, 1): North Dakota, @Brigham Young, San Jose State. The Holy War is back on the schedule, so that's good. The rest of it? Eh.
11. Washington (0, 1): @Rutgers, Montana, Fresno State. We're still scratching our heads at the "@Rutgers" part there, especially since it's not going to do UDub any favors if they're on the edge of the playoffs.
12. Colorado (0, 1): N-Colorado State, Texas State, Northern Colorado. I keep having to remember that Texas State is FBS now and it's been several years since that happened. Ask me about trying to remember which conference Maryland is in some time...

All right, we're trying to truck though these to finish before the season proper starts, so expect the SEC right on the heels of this one!

Rating the 2017 Non-Conference Slate: Big 12

Okay, Big 12, you're up!

1. Texas (1 legit, 0 FCS): Maryland, San Jose State, @Southern California. This is a fun schedule. You've got a Maryland team that won't be good or anything this year, an increasingly plucky San Jose State, and then we go party like it's 2005. Sounds good to me.
2. Oklahoma (1, 0): Texas-El Paso, @Ohio State, Tulane. Well, when your conference only plays 3 OOC games, outliers like having an Ohio State on your schedule count for a lot.
3. West Virginia (0.75, 1): N-Virginia Tech, East Carolina, Delaware State. I already ragged on the game against VPI being in an NFL stadium, so instead let's focus on, uh, well I don't think ECU is supposed to be good this year. Also every time I look up and down this list WVU being here just still seems strange. Can the Big 12 and SEC arrange like a Mizzou-WVU swap? I think that'd work better for everyone.
4. Texas Tech (0.75, 1): Eastern Washington, Arizona State, @Houston. I've gone to the "hey Eastern Washington has a red field!" well too many times, and they lead off with these three in the first four weeks, so it's likely Kliff Kingsbury will still have a job at the end, so I can't use that either. Houston could (should?) still be good enough this year to make it interesting, so maybe "likely" is a bit too strong there.
5. Oklahoma State (0.5, 0): Tulsa, @South Alabama, @Pittsburgh. Huh, scheduling two out-of-conference road games out of three is definitely a thing you can do, but it's not something you see too often. They do get 5 home conference games this year, but it's still odd.
6. Iowa State (0.5, 1): Northern Iowa, Iowa, @Akron. I think the Cyclones will go 3-0 or 0-3 against this slate, setting the tone for the rest of their season. After all, they did lose to UNI last year, and if you can lose to your in-state FCS rival, then you can definitely lose on the road to a MAC team.
7. Baylor (0.25, 1): Liberty, Texas-San Antonio, @Duke. This is certainly a schedule.
8. Kansas State (0, 1): Central Arkansas, Charlotte, @Vanderbilt. Depending on how feisty Vandy is this year, this may give K-State some trouble, but this slate should be no trouble. Also, as far as I know this marks the beginning of a stretch that will see none of my extended relations playing for the best football team in the Little Apple. I imagine things will be back to normal in 15 years or so.
9. Kansas (0, 1): Southeast Missouri State, Central Michigan, @Ohio. Most of what you need to know about Kansas football is that they'll be doing well to go 2-1 against this slate. If they somehow go 3-0, it will be the first time KU has won 3 games in a season since 2009.
10. Texas Christian (0, 1): Jackson State, @Arkansas State, Southern Methodist. Between games at Houston, South Alabama, and Akron it's like the Big 12 is trying to do its best ACC impersonation. But they still can't come close to the champs.

Up next, we head over to everyone's favorite mostly-west-of-the-Rockies conference, the Pac-12! See you then.

Rating the 2017 Non-Conference Slate: Big Ten

Onward, to the Land of Meat and Cheese, aka, the Midwest!

1. Michigan (1 legit, 0 FCS): N-Florida, Cincinnati, Air Force. The netural-site game against Florida is intriguing for reasons probably best saved for when we get to the Gators, so for now let's wonder why we didn't get a 10th anniversary Michigan-Appalachian State matchup. They're not even FCS anymore!
2. Ohio State (1, 0): Oklahoma, Army, Nevada-Las Vegas. The return game for Ohio State-Oklahoma almost got the Buckeyes to #1 here, but I liked Michigan's other opponents better.
3. Nebraska (1, 0): Arkansas State, @Oregon, Northern Illinois. Nebraska at Oregon is precisely the kind of inter-sectional matchup we like here at asimsports. More of this, please!
4. Maryland (1, 1): @Texas, Towson, Central Florida. Okay, Maryland-Texas lacks some of the, well, cachet of Nebraska-Oregon, but we'll still take it.
5. Michigan State (1, 0): Bowling Green State, Western Michigan, Notre Dame. "Wait", you're saying, "why is Sparty ranked below Maryland even though they don't play an FCS team?" This was a call on my part, knowing that Michigan State plays Notre Dame basically every year, so it's not as interesting as Maryland's game at Texas.
6. Purdue (0.75, 0): N-Louisville, Ohio, @Missouri. There's new management in West Lafeyette, but that doesn't figure to help against the Cardinals. The Boilermakers are in Year 1 of a rebuild and are half-liable to go 0-3 against this slate.
7. Rutgers (0.75, 1): Washington, Eastern Michigan, Morgan State. Rutgers was probably one of the worst major conference teams in the history of college football last year, and starting the year off with a game against UDub doesn't figure to help them get pointed in the correct direction. Kudos for scheduling it, though.
8. Pennsylvania State (0.5, 0): Akron, Pittsburgh, Georgia State. Penn State should play Pitt every year, which makes any time it does happen special. Not much else going on here, though.
9. Northwestern (0.25, 0): Nevada, @Duke, Bowling Green State. I feel like there's something snarky to say about Northwestern at Duke, but I can't think of it right now. Luckily, I've got a few weeks before they actually play.
10. Minnesota (0, 0): Buffalo, @Oregon State, Middle Tennessee State. Minnesota at Oregon State seems random, but again, we'll take it.
11. Wisconsin (0, 0): Utah State, Florida Atlantic, @Brigham Young. It was a real debate between whether to put Minnesota or Wisconsin at #10, but ultimately BYU suffers again for not being in the Pac-12, which you know has to annoy them.
12. Indiana (0, 0): @Virginia, Florida International, Georgia Southern. But if it's any consolation BYU fans, you still managed to get ranked above a schedule that includes a trip to a major conference team.
13. Illinois (0, 0): Ball State, Western Kentucky, @South Florida. Illinois will do well to win two of these, or heck maybe one depending if this is one of those years Ball State isn't horrible.
14. Iowa (0, 0): Wyoming, @Iowa State, North Texas. Everything that you need to know about modern day Iowa football is by far the most interesting NFL prospect on their out-of-conference schedule is Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen, which is also something you can tell your friends to sound really smart, especially if Wyoming wins.

And that's that. Up next, the conference of the land Americans love to argue about whether or is the Midwest, the Big 12!

Rating the 2017 Non-Conference Slate: ACC

Let's start off our review with the Atlantic Coast Conference. An explanation of the rating system can be found here. FCS teams are indicated by italics. "N-" prefixes indicate neutral site games.

1. Florida State (2 legit, 1 FCS): N-Alabama, Louisiana-Monroe, Delaware State, @Florida. The ACC will get off to a crackin' start on Labor Day weekend, and it's not a coincidence the two teams that will play in the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium are at the top of this list. (Which reminds me: is there a funny name out there for the new Dome? In Dallas there's Jerry Jones's Intergalactic Space Palace, so what would the Atlanta equivalent be? Arthur Blank's Pan-Universal Fun Dome? I'm open to suggestions.) Of course, don't let the realization that it's entirely possibly FSU and Bama will meet again, probable even, in the college football playoff. Especially not that they could meet in the very same stadium again.
2. Georgia Tech (1.75, 1): N-Tennessee, Jacksonville State, @Central Florida, Georgia. Us Tech-types have been aching for years to get into the party that takes place every Labor Day weekend a mile from campus, so the the chance to make it four straight against the SEC East is just gravy. Meanwhile, I'm as against it as anyone else, but I will at least note that when you see major conference teams play games at Group of Five stadiums it's usually as part of a multi-game deal or the major conference team is saving money. Hopefully I remember this when the return game comes around in 2020.
3. Pittsburgh (1, 1): Youngstown State, @Pennsylvania State, Oklahoma State, Rice. This is an OOC schedule that checks all the boxes. 1) Does it involve a non-mandatory rivalry? Check. 2) Does it feature a geographically distant major-conference foe? Check.
4. Clemson (1, 1): Kent State, Auburn, Citadel, @South Carolina. Clemson's fate this season has vastly more to do with their in-conference games with Florida State and Louisville, but nonetheless the return game of this Tigers-Tigers series is rife with implication, provided Auburn is any good. Also, it gives us something to look forward to in the desert that usually is Week 2.
5. Boston College (1, 0): @Northern Illinois, Notre Dame, Central Michigan, @Connecticut. Okay, one road game against a G5 opponent I can understand, but how do you manage to get two on the schedule at once? Nonetheless, the Golden Eagles get credit for ducking a FCS opponent this year, depending on how you feel about UConn. (Which for most, I suspect, is nothing.)
6. Syracuse (1, 1): Central Connecticut State, Middle Tennessee State, Central Michigan, @Louisiana State. So this year I switched the spreadsheet to a system that allowed the "legit" points to be grabbed from another sheet and automatically calculated. There were some occasional mistakes, but this is a good example of one I didn't catch until I was putting the rankings together. "Yeah, let's see, FCS, MTSU, Central Mich... oh right, LSU, yeah that should probably rate higher than 13th."
7. North Carolina State (1, 1): N-South Carolina, Marshall, Furman, @Notre Dame. It's hard to know what to do with Notre Dame on an ACC team's schedule these days, since it's not really an organic matchup. So that's how you get a game at LSU counting better than a game at Notre Dame and a neutral site game against South Carolina.
8. Miami (1, 1): Bethune-Cookman, @Arkansas State, Toledo, Notre Dame. Miami continues its tour of random G5 campuses, this team flying to... whereever you fly to get to Jonesboro, Arkansas. Memphis, I guess? Anyway, I decided to stay consistent with my earlier assessment of the Notre Dame thing.
9. North Carolina (1, 1): California, @Old Dominion, Notre Dame, Western Carolina. Okay, seriously, what is up ACC teams? Did everyone get together at Media Days a few years ago and decide "yes, let's schedule all of our road games against non-major opponents in the same season"? That's four out of nine so far!
10. Wake Forest (1, 1): Presbyterian, Utah State, @Appalachian State, @Notre Dame. 5 out of 10!
11. Duke (0.5, 1): North Carolina Central, Northwestern, Baylor, @Army. 6 out of 11!
12. Virginia (0.5, 1): William & Mary, Indiana, Connecticut, @Boise State. 7 out of 12!
13. Virginia Tech (0.5, 1): N-West Virginia, Delaware, @East Carolina, Old Dominion. 8 out of 13!
14. Louisville (0, 1): N-Purdue, Kent State, Murray State, @Kentucky. Nine out of... oh, right, Kentucky's in the SEC.

Click below to see my closing thoughts.

Rating the 2017 Non-Conference Slate: Prologue

And we're back!

Let's start with the usual explanation. Since 2008, each summer, my brother and I surveil all of the Power 5 teams and selected Group of 5 teams and assign each a "legit" rating. This rating is on a scale of 0 to 1 in increments of .25. The rating system is extremely subjective: a third party reading would probably reveal our biases. However, we don't declare the work done until we assign a rating for 72 different teams and agree on it. An explanation of the ratings:

• 0: these are generally teams that aren't and haven't been very historically good, or otherwise do not generate any excitement when you see them on your non-conference schedule. Examples include Iowa State and Rutgers. This year 24 of the rated teams earned zeroes. It's worth noting we didn't use this rating until 2012. Last year 19 teams were rated at this level.
• 0.25: these are teams that might generate some excitement if you're college football geek, or we think they may be interesting this year. Examples this year include Washington State and Minnesota. We rated 10 teams at 0.25 this year, down from 11 last year.
• 0.5: This is the passing lane of ratings, featuring either teams on an upswing (like Pittsburgh and Utah) or teams on a downswing (like Mississippi and Michigan State). Boise State also appears here, as our highest rated Group of 5 team. 10 teams were also rated at this level, down from 14 last year.
• 0.75: this is usually the domain of power conference teams that have stagnated that are still interesting, or teams that we'd probably like to see play but feel like would be underrated by the community at large. Teams of this stripe include Texas A&M and Virginia Tech. Full disclosure: this is also where we put Georgia Tech, because as noted above these ratings are subjective. We also rated 10 teams at 0.75 this year, up from 7 last year.
• 1: These are the blue-bloods impervious to changes, or teams that have been really good to national title contenders over the past 10 years or so. Essentially, this is Notre Dame: it doesn't matter if they went 4-8 last year, they're still a 1 because they're Notre freakin' Dame. There were 18 of them this year, down from 21 last year.

As usual, we list all the teams that earned a 1 this year: Alabama, Auburn, California-Los Angeles, Clemson, Florida, Florida State,  Georgia, Louisiana State, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Oregon, Southern California, Stanford, and Texas. The teams in bold have been 1's every year we've done the rankings. Yes, even Notre Dame got pipped from the 1's one time, pulling a 0.75 in 2012, but I don't think what I wrote above is a contradiction.

Other than Notre Dame, the other non-Power 5 teams to earn ratings this year were Boise State (0.5) and Houston (0.25). The average overall rating was 0.4583.

With that, let's close with the rating of each conference:

1. Southeastern: 0.536
2. Pac-12: 0.521
3. Atlantic Coast: 0.482
4. Big 12: 0.472
5. Big Ten: 0.429

I guess we don't go in for gray skies and the Iowas of the world. At any rate, the first up will be the home of the defending national champions and the banes of the SEC East: the ACC.

Rating the 2016 Non-Conference Slate

So yeah, this is kind of late! My apologies, but unlike last year, I've actually been employed during the timeframe that I usually do this.

To make up for it, I'm just going to do this all in one go. So strap in and hold on, because we're about to talk about some schedules and make some wild guesses about 60 football teams.

First, the usual explanation. Every summer, my brother and I rate the attractiveness of each team in the Power 5 conferences plus a few other teams. Our ratings, broadly speaking, are:

• 0: unless you're a fan of a team that is a zero, you probably count this team as an automatic win. These are your Purdues and Kansases of the world.
• 0.25: hardcore college football types might get up for this, or they're a respectable team on a downswing. Examples of this type are Duke and Northwestern.
• 0.5: these are usually respectable teams we don't find very exciting to watch, or teams that aren't really very good but have some redeeming quality. Examples of this type are Louisville, Kansas State, and California.
• 0.75: these are the Rodney Dangerfield of teams, that is, teams that are actually good but don't really get a lot of respect, that is, until they beat your team. Examples of teams in this category are Wisconsin and Mississippi.
• 1: these are teams that have either fought their way to respectability or will pretty much always get your hackles up because they're the Notre Dames and Alabamas of the world.

The only non-Power 5 teams to receive a rating other than 0 were Notre Dame (1), Boise State (0.75), Brigham Young (0.5), and Houston (0.25).

Additionally, when average up the numbers of the whole schedule, several teams will usually have the same value. I use the following as tiebreakers, though all are subject to exceptions:

• First and foremost, if two teams have the same schedule rating but one plays no FCS teams and other plays one, then the team with no FCS teams will get ranked higher.
• I tend to discount yearly rivalries, but give boosts to rivalries that have been on hold or are otherwise played infrequently, like Penn State-Pitt or Florida-Miami.
• Power 5 teams rated a zero still count for more than a Group of 5 team rated a zero.
• Sometimes I'll give the nod to a team that plays two 0.25 rated teams over a team that plays one 0.5 team.
• Generally awful teams that play a bunch of really good teams may get discounted because, well, they didn't scheduled because it'd be a fun matchup, they got scheduled because they needed a homecoming game. This could be called the "Kansas rule", probably.

Now some dorky numbers about the distribution.

• First, we rated 72 teams, since we do rate some non-Power 5 teams.
• The average rating was 0.4965.
• We gave 21 teams a 1, 6 teams a 0.75, 15 teams a 0.5, 11 teams a 0.25, and 19 teams a 0. 

Note that since the ratings themselves are the completely subjective opinions of two Georgia Tech fans that grew up in the South, there are some biases. To wit, here are the average ratings for each Power 5 conference:

1. Southeastern: 0.625
2. Pacific-12: 0.563
3. Big 12: 0.56
4. Atlantic Coast: 0.464
5. Big Ten: 0.446

This year, the Pac-12 moved past the Big 12, but just barely! We're a little down on the SEC and Big 12 this year compared to years past as well.

Okay, with that out of the way, let's get down to business. Teams in italics are FCS schools.

ACC

I wrestled with who to put at the top of the ACC's ratings. I'll explain my logic below.

1. Florida State (1.75 legit, 1 FCS): N-Mississippi, Charleston Southern, @South Florida, Florida. I went with FSU as #1 mostly on the strength of Ole Miss versus Tennessee. Both teams have a team they're required to play (Florida in this case), so ultimately I went with this. It's also the more interesting matchup and has possible national title implications.
2. Virginia Tech (1.75, 1): Liberty, N-Tennessee, East Carolina, @Notre Dame. As you can imagine, it was close. Tennessee is supposed to be good this year, and the neutral field in this case is the infield of Bristol Motor Speedway. Nonetheless, Ole Miss seems more likely to be good, the implications are less, and VPI is playing Notre Dame because the ACC said they had to this year.
3. Clemson (1.25, 1): @Auburn, Troy, South Carolina State, South Carolina. Clemson's schedule isn't too shabby either, mostly suffering from the drop-off of their chief rival more than anything else.
4. Duke (1.25, 1): North Carolina Central, @Northwestern, @Notre Dame, Army. I'm debating whether Notre Dame really counts as "OOC" for the purposes of this review, given their agreement with the ACC, but for now they can stick around here and count toward the ratings.
5. Pittsburgh (1, 1): Villanova, Pennsylvania State, @Oklahoma State, Marshall. Pitt will get their grudge match with the Nittany Lions out of the way early, but the trip to Stillwater could wind up telling us more about whether the Panthers are back in any appreciable way.
6. Virginia (1, 1): Richmond, @Oregon, @Connecticut, Central Michigan. They finally fired Mike London, right? Well, there goes that dependable joke. At any rate, the Hoos will likely make Oregon look like Oregon again.
7. Miami (1, 1): Florida A&M, Florida Atlantic, @Appalachian State, @Notre Dame. Da U taking a road trip to Boone, NC is... one of the odder road trips I can ever remember appearing in this space. This must be for a 3-for-1 or something.
8. North Carolina State (1, 1): William & Mary, @East Carolina, Old Dominion, Notre Dame. Just milkin' Notre Dame at this point.
9. Syracuse (1, 1): Colgate, South Florida, @Connecticut, Notre Dame. Is Syracuse trying to prove that it can "still just be friends" with its former Big East conference-mates? Or did they schedule USF thinking it'd be an easy win (when, well, good luck with that, maybe).
10. Georgia Tech (1, 1): Mercer, Vanderbilt, Georgia Southern, @Georgia. It's funny that the team with two SEC schools appears this low, but, well, one of them is Vanderbilt and the other is a yearly rivalry game, so, yeah. 
11. North Carolina (1, 2): N-Georgia, @Illinois, James Madison, Citadel. Neutral site games against one of the better teams in the SEC is good. On the road to Illinois, well, nothing to write home about, but they probably didn't know that 6 years ago. Two FCS teams? Oof. 
12. Louisville (0.25, 0): Charlotte, @Marshall, @Houston, Kentucky. Yes, that's right, the 0.25 comes from Houston. That could be a really good game, actually, but let's hold off on that until we get there.
13. Wake Forest (0, 1): Tulane, Delaware, @Indiana, Army. An appropriately milquetoast schedule.
14. Boston College (0, 1): Massachusetts, Wagner, Buffalo, Connecticut. That sure is a collection of Northeastern cupcake schools, all right.

Big Ten

Apparently most of the Big Ten took the move to three conference games as an excuse to just not schedule anyone interesting at all. At least most of them didn't or don't schedule FCS teams.

1. Michigan State (1.25, 1): Furman, @Notre Dame, Brigham Young. Sparty gets us off to a solid start, and while Michigan State-Notre Dame is usually fun, it doesn't quite have the panache that our runner-up does.
2. Wisconsin (1, 0): N-Louisiana State, Akron, Georgia State. Yep, that's right, if there were a completely subjective endeavor then this would probably be the #1 on the strength of this LSU game, which is actually being played in Green Bay for some reason.
3. Ohio State (1, 0): Bowling Green State, Tulsa, @Oklahoma. Honestly, I kinda want to get to previewing the Sooners? Anyway, I like the move of playing two Oklahoma schools here. Seriously, how does that happen? Ohio State being in, well, Ohio has the entire MAC smorgasbord to choose from when selecting teams to play, yet winds up with one of the two other schools in Oklahoma that isn't Oklahoma. Coincidence? Well, yeah, probably.
4. Nebraska (1, 0): Fresno State, Wyoming, Oregon. Are the Huskers back? I honestly have no idea, but the numbers would say that it's unlikely they'll lose as painfully and as often last year. Note: I didn't say they will win more than last year, necessarily.
5. Pennsylvania State (0.5, 0): Kent State, @Pittsburgh, Temple. We know all about the Penn State-Pitt thing, but imagine if Penn State loses to Temple again.
6. Rutgers (0.5, 1): @Washington, Howard, New Mexico. Well, Rutgers will probably luck into winnings two of these games.
7. Illinois (0.5, 1):  Murray State, North Carolina, Western Michigan. Remember that time last year when Illinois fired their coach mere weeks before the season started? Well, if the Broncos can row that boat right into Urbana-Champaign we may get a much more traditional in-season firing.
8. Michigan (0, 0): Hawaii, Central Florida, Colorado. I'll comment on the Hawaii thing in the preview for this weekend, but in the meantime, boy howdy this is basically a preseason for the Wolverines.
9. Indiana (0, 0): @Florida International, Ball State, Wake Forest. At FIU! That's, uh, uncharted territory for a Big Ten program, I'm pretty sure.
10. Northwestern (0, 1): Western Michigan, Illinois State, Duke. Here's a sentence I never thought I'd type back when I started this site, or really, up until about 30 seconds ago: You know, that Northwestern-Duke game could be kind of interesting.
11. Minnesota (0, 1): Oregon State, Indiana State, Colorado State. With the Vikings moving into their new home, the Gophers finally have their home field to themselves again. However, since Big Ten teams play all their OOC games in September, expect a lot of comments about humidity and mosquitoes.
12. Purdue (0, 1): Eastern Kentucky, Cincinnati, Nevada. The most exciting thing about this schedule is that Purdue might lose all of these games.
13. Iowa (0, 1): Miami, Iowa State, North Dakota State. I may have done this before, but sure as heck not very often: yes, Iowa is rated higher than Maryland because they play Iowa State and North Dakota State over FIU and UCF. It doesn't help that NDSU is a powerhouse and UCF was completely and utterly awful in every regard last season.
14. Maryland (0, 1): Howard, @Florida International, @Central Florida. Terps tryin' to work that Florida pipeline, I guess? Hey, whatever works.

Big 12

1. Texas (1.5, 0): Notre Dame, Texas-El Paso, @California. Because of how we do the ratings (see above), Texas comes out ahead here on the strength of Cal over Houston. Nonetheless, despite actually being less interesting this is still pretty solid in its own right, because if nothing else it's not like the Big 12 and Pac-12 play each other very often. Well, other than two teams below.
2. Oklahoma (1.25, 0): N-Houston, Louisiana-Monroe, Ohio State. I know I've been beaten to this punch literally hundreds of times over the past six months, but it bears repeating: if the Sooners go 3-0 against this schedule, then they will be in the playoff barring some other disaster, like losing to Texas again.
3. Kansas State (1, 1):  @Stanford, Florida Atlantic, Missouri State. The "Bill Synder is old/a wizard" jokes don't seem as funny anymore, because it especially seems that he, and by extension, the program is running a bit low on steam. I have to think this will be his last year.
4. West Virginia (0.5, 1): Missouri, Youngstown State, N-Brigham Young. This is a pretty solid schedule to set up whatever inexplicable thing West [redacted] Virginia is going to do this year. If you're a 'Neer, just strap in, pop a Red Bull Holgo-style, and enjoy.
5. Texas Tech (0.5, 1): Stephen F. Austin, @Arizona State, Louisiana Tech. Wait, make that three Big 12-Pac-12 games. Uh... anyway, so speaking of jokes getting old, I note that no one is talking about Cliff Kingsbury's dashing good looks anymore. Vacillating between 4 and 8 wins has that effect.
6. Oklahoma State (0.5, 1): Southeastern Louisiana, Central Michigan, Pittsburgh. Mike Gundy has to be one of the longest tenured coaches in FBS, right? Seriously, that "I'm a MAN! I'm FORTY!" press conference flip-out was nine years ago. Of course, he's an alum, and if he was going to leave, he'd have done it by now. But are they happy with him in Stillwater? Is T. Boone's money happy with him? Of course, with the shine off oil prices right now, maybe that stick isn't as big as it used to be. Anyway! We'll find out sometime after they play those three teams.
7. Iowa State (0.5, 1): Northern Iowa, @Iowa, San Jose State. The championship of Iowa could well be decided when Northern Iowa plays North Dakota State on October 29th. Wouldn't that be something?
8. Texas Christian (0.25, 1): South Dakota State, Arkansas, @Southern Methodist. One of these years I'm going to crunch the numbers and start awarding Southwestern Conference championships because, seriously Big 12 just invite SMU, Houston, and Rice and get it over with.
9. Kansas (0, 1): Rhode Island, Ohio, @Memphis. The Jayhawks will probably be doing well to get two wins out of this.
10. Baylor (0, 1): Northwestern State, Southern Methodist, @Rice.

Pacific 12

1. Southern California (2, 0): N-Alabama, Utah State, Notre Dame. We're off to a pretty good start here for the Pac-12. Of course, the Trojans usually appear near the top of my rankings thanks to their annual game with Notre Dame, so all they need to do is add another worthwhile team. Thankfully, they usually do.
2. Stanford (1.5, 0): Kansas State, @Notre Dame, Rice. Of course, the Cardinal also play Notre Dame all the time, but Kansas State and Rice are... not quite Alabama.
3. California-Los Angeles (1.25, 0): @Texas A&M, Nevada-Las Vegas, @Brigham Young. There's a chance for UCLA to make a statement early, but considering how mixed the predictions are for TAMU this year, that statement may get somewhat less impactful as the season goes on.
4. California (1, 0): N-Hawaii, @San Diego State, Texas. Let's pretend one of these games didn't get played already, and wonder how Cal will deal with SDSU's possibly really good defense. Against Texas, one wonders if even Cal's defense can make Texas's offense look something other than "dysfunctional".
5. Colorado (1, 1): N-Coloardo State, Idaho State, @Michigan. It seemed like the Buffs made some baby steps toward mediocrity last year, but we'll find out real quick how close they are in their annual neutral site tilt with the Rams. At any rate, it'll tell us more than the trip to Ann Arbor—the Buffs are still a ways from being able to mount a challenge there.
6. Oregon (1, 1): California-Davis, Virginia, @Nebraska. I wonder how many more years we'll be wondering if the Ducks are "back" yet. They're definitely not favorites this year, heck, I'm not sure if a lot of people even have them second in the Pac-12 North.
7. Oregon State (0.75, 1): @Minnesota, Idaho State, Boise State. While Mile Reilly really doesn't seem like the guy for Nebraska so far, I have to think that there might be a few wistful stares down at the corn fields of Nebraska on the way to Minneapolis.
8. Washington State (0.5, 1): Eastern Washington, @Boise State, Idaho. Fun facts about this particular collection of teams! For starters, it's a relatively compact group, especially considering the area in which all these teams are located. Stadium-to-stadium it's 56, 221, and 9 miles, respectively, which makes Boise about 30 miles closer to Pullman than Seattle. And of course, you know about Boise's famous blue turf, but don't forget about Eastern Washington's (in)famous red turf. Idaho, meanwhile, plays in the KIBBIE DOME, which five years ago I apparently called the "crucible of potato pain" and have otherwise generally admired over the years. Let's wryly note that it'd be kind of funny if Wazzou loses to a FCS team again this year while otherwise having an okay season and take a moment to reflect on Idaho, a team that just couldn't make it work in DI-A/FBS. Effectively homeless after the dissolution of the WAC for football, they wound up in the Sun Belt, which has decided to boot its affiliate members beyond the 2017 season. Without any other options, the Vandals will drop back to FCS and play football in the Big Sky conference. While I imagine they'll still show up in the previews, alas, the hope of getting a big name team in the KIBBIE DOME is effectively over.
9. Arizona State (0.25, 1): Northern Arizona, Texas Tech, @Texas-San Antonio. Um, gee, yeah, back to Pac-12 teams. Uh, Arizona State is going to UTSA for some reason? But hey, they play in the Alamodome, so it'll at least seem big time, from the outside.
10. Arizona (0.25, 1): N-Brigham Young, Grambling State, Hawaii. Let us appreciate Hawaii for a second: they played Cal in Australia already, and will travel to Michigan and Arizona. I guess in this day and age of 12 games schedules and conference championship games the extra home game you get by playing in Honolulu isn't as appealing anymore?
11. Utah (0.25, 1): Southern Utah, Brigham Young, @San Jose State. The way to San Jose: catch a direct flight from Salt Lake City to San Jose, head south on 85, take the Alma Ave exit and follow the signs for Spartan Stadium. That wasn't so hard, was it?
12. Washington (0, 1): Rutgers, Idaho, Portland State. Well, UDub is a trendy pick as a spoiler in the Pac-12 North, and this OOC schedule certainly won't do anything to hinder them.

Southeastern

1. Georgia (1.25, 1): North Carolina, Nichols State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Georgia Tech. This is about as exciting as it's going to get here in SEC territory, especially after we clear the top three. So strap in, folks.
2. Auburn (1, 1): Clemson, Arkansas State, Louisiana-Monroe, Alabama A&M. While Alabama's slate is probably more exciting in several ways, I'm still deferring to the fact that, well, between Clemson and Alabama Auburn may well have the hardest schedule in the country this year, period.
3. Alabama (1, 1): N-Southern California, Western Kentucky, Kent State, Tennessee-Chattanooga. I don't think I really need to expound on the USC game, so I'll just say that, man, I would give anything for that Western Kentucky game to be exciting for, like, a quarter or two. Just make those pulses in Tuscaloosa quicken a little, ya know? Obviously the Hilltoppers stand no actual chance, but hey, stranger things have happened, strictly speaking.
4. Mississippi (1,1): N-Florida State, Wofford, Memphis, Georgia Southern. Okay, so the odds of Memphis beating Ole Miss two years in a row low, but still, it makes you think. And of course Georgia Southern will bring that option goodness in Oxford. And way back up at the top of the ACC section I noted that there first game could have some possible national title implications, and it still definitely could! Obviously, neither FSU nor Ole Miss are favorites in their conferences, but they've got a non-zero chance of playing each other again.
5. Arkansas (1, 1): Louisiana Tech, @Texas Christian, Texas State, Alcorn State. I guess I'm rating TCU over UCLA, because that's pretty much the only reason this in the order this is in.
6. Texas A&M (1, 1): California-Los Angeles, Prairie View A&M, New Mexico State, Texas-San Antonio. The Aggies figure to get through this non-conference slate 3-1 or 4-0, which means things will really get interesting once they get into the meat of the SEC play, specifically with regard to whether they'll have the same coach at the end of the season as the beginning.
7. South Carolina (1, 1): East Carolina, Massachusetts, Western Carolina, @Clemson. So... obviously the thing to do after Steve Spurrier resigns during the middle of the season en route to the worst record fo the Gamecocks in a long while is to hire... a man who also used to be a Florida head coach, except that unlike Spurrier he wasn't successful at a school at pretty much everyone agrees is more primed for success in the first place. So, yeah, how long is Muschamp's shelf life in Columbia? I give him two seasons, tops.
8. Florida (1, 1): Massachusetts, North Texas, Presbyterian, @Florida State. Speaking of the Gators, they're all the way down here because, well, if they didn't play FSU every year then this wouldn't even be a 1.
9. Louisiana State (0.75, 1): N-Wisconsin, Jacksonville State, Southern Mississippi, South Alabama. I always wrestle with things like "playing Wisconsin in Green Bay" being a neutral site game or not. I generally feel the textbook definition is based on ticket sales: if the split is 50/50, then it's neutral. However, that data's not always easy to come by, so it's easier just to go based off the site instead.
10. Tennessee (0.75, 1): Appalachian State, N-Virginia Tech, Ohio, Tennessee Tech. Between Tennessee, Appalachian State, and VPI we need some sort of Appalachian Championship.
11. Vanderbilt (0.75, 1): Middle Tennessee State, @Georgia Tech, @Western Kentucky, Tennessee State. Full disclosure: Georgia Tech is rated as a 0.75 in our system because, well, we're biased.
12. Missouri (0.5, 1): @West Virginia, Eastern Michigan, Delaware State, Middle Tennessee State. So I got a very nice e-mail yesterday wondering where the annual OOC previews were. Suffice it to say, I was shocked that anyone outside of my immediate family or Facebook feed actually reads any of this stuff, much less looks forward to any of it, so I said that this would probably be the longest previews yet. Since the e-mail was from missouri.edu, I'm assuming that the person in question is a Mizzou fan, so hello there! Thanks for reading!
13. Kentucky (0.5, 1): Southern Mississippi, New Mexico State, Austin Peay, @Louisville. I think there's a pretty good chance Kentucky goes 2-2 against this schedule.
14. Mississippi State (0.25, 1): South Alabama, Massachusetts, @Brigham Young, Samford. I feel like we underrated BYU a bit? But hey, this doesn't feel as bad of a schedule as a looks, and I'll always applaud a SEC school for actually traveling outside of the region.

Okay, so let's sum this up with the usual rituals.

First, there's the List of Shame, that is, teams that play more than one FCS school. I'm happy to report this year there's just one: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which saw fit to play both James Madison and The Citadel.

Next, a completely subjective ranking of the teams I feel that have the most exciting and/or interesting non-conference schedules. Since I talked about them at length above, I'll just list them here:

1. Southern California (2, 0): N-Alabama, Utah State, Notre Dame. Yes, they play Notre Dame every year, but still, it's the only 2 and instead of a FCS team they play Utah State, who are not exactly mincemeat.
2. Florida State (1.75, 1): N-Mississippi, Charleston Southern, @South Florida, Florida.The yearly rivalry here is offset by South Florida, which may be decent again this year! And it's on the road! (Well, we can pretend now that there probably won't be mostly FSU fans there.)
3. Oklahoma (1.25, 0): N-Houston, Louisiana-Monroe, Ohio State. I am seriously geeking out about the Oklahoma-Houston game that I probably won't even get to watch.
4. Texas (1.5, 0): Notre Dame, Texas-El Paso, @California. Again, I said completely subjective. Mostly here because we'll learn about these Longhorns from this schedule.
5. California-Los Angeles (1.25, 0): @Texas A&M, Nevada-Las Vegas, @Brigham Young. SAme applies here, especially with two long trips.

And finally, the conference averages (which, I should note, is an average of an average, to account for 4 versus 3 non-conference games):

1. Pac-12 (0.27)
2. ACC (0.22)
3. SEC (0.21)
4. Big 12 (0.2)
5. Big Ten (0.12)

Seriously, B1G, get with the program.

And that's a wrap! (Apologies for all the grammar mistakes.)

Let's throw it over to the TV listings!

Rating the 2015 Non-Conference Slate: Epilogue

Okay, since I kind of backed myself all the way up to the first day of the season, I'll provide links to all the individual conference breakdowns here:

• Prologue
• ACC
• Big Ten
• Big 12
• Pac-12
• SEC

And now, let us complete our yearly ritual.

First, the list of shame, that is, teams that scheduled more than one FCS opponent: Boston College, Kentucky, and North Carolina. It's not great that two of the three are ACC teams, but hey, at least there's only three.

This is normally where the best schedule list would appear, but I'm having a bit of a crisis. Virginia is the only school with a rating better than 2, but they're awful, and one of those teams is Notre Dame, which other ACC teams are also benefiting from. Instead of a ranking, I'm going to produce a list of teams that I thought of as having better schedules:

• Virginia (2.25 legit, 1 FCS): @California-Los Angeles, Notre Dame, William & Mary, Boise State. It's still a pretty good schedule, even minus Notre Dame, with the road trip to Pasadena and a visit from Boise.
• Texas (1.25, 0): @Notre Dame, Rice, California. Accounting for the ACC and Notre Dame business, this may be the best. A road trip to South Bend, and a visit from a (hopefully) up-and-coming Pac-12 team. If Cal had been better recently, this would have rated a lot higher.
• Nebraska (1.5, 0): Brigham Young, South Alabama, @Miami, Southern Mississippi. It's not quite a visit to the OB, but that's still an interesting trip.
• Northwestern (1.25, 1): Stanford, Eastern Illinois, @Duke, Ball State. This is a big schedule for a team like Northwestern, which is generally not great but it can at least be said to try.

And now, the conference averages, though again the ACC's rating is probably inflated by Notre Dame:

1. ACC (0.25)
2. Pac-12 (0.22)
3. Big Ten (0.203)
4. Big 12 (0.15)
5. SEC (0.08)

And that's that! I'm sorry it was late this year, but better late than never. Next up: Thursday and Friday's opening slate!

Rating the 2015 Non-Conference State: SEC

The SEC is the hard-to-get conference, as they have the most desirable teams but the worst out-of-conference schedules. This never seems to come back to bite them, though...

1. South Carolina (1.5 legit, 1): N-North Carolina, Central Florida, Citadel, Clemson. Yeah, this is what passes for the best non-conference schedule in the SEC this year. Let's just get on with it.
2. Florida (1, 0): New Mexico State, East Carolina, Florida Atlantic, Florida State. I wanted to rank this below Alabama and Tennessee because their marquee OOC game isn't a rivalry game, but there are also, technically, no FCS teams on this schedule, so I put it ahead. (I say technically because, well, as awful as New Mexico State has been the past few years...)
3. Alabama (1, 1): N-Wisconsin, Middle Tennessee State, Louisiana-Monroe, Charleston Southern. The game against Wisconsin in Texas is the highlight, unless you're in a position to buy tickets for it, apparently.
4. Tennessee (1, 1): Bowling Green State, Oklahoma, Western Carolina, North Texas. Tennessee is the exception to the scheduling rule for the SEC most of the time, with other examples like the recent home-and-home with UCLA. Keep doing you, Vols.
5. Auburn (0.75, 1): N-Louisville, Jacksonville State, San Jose State, Idaho. Auburn does not, as far as I can tell, currently have a game at San Jose schedules, so no "Do You Know The Way to San Jose" jokes... for now.
6. Georgia (0.75, 1): Louisiana-Monroe, Southern, Georgia Southern, Georgia Tech. Dear Fellow Georgia Tech Fans: Georgia Southern no longer runs Paul Johnson's offense, and was probably not scheduled with the intention to prepare them for us. Thank you.
7. Kentucky (0.75, 1.5): Louisiana-Lafayette, Eastern Kentucky, Charlotte, Louisville. Not many transitional teams left, but Kentucky managed to find one in Charlotte. Good job, guys.
8. Texas A&M (0.5, 1): N-Arizona State, Ball State, Nevada, Western Carolina. I am having a hard time describing how bummed I was when I recently discovered the "A&M" in "Texas A&M" hasn't actually stood for anything since 1963. I liked typing out "Agricultural and Mechanical", and now it feels like it's been taken away form me despite the fact it was always incorrect in the first place. Grr.
9. Missouri (0.5, 1): Southeast Missouri State, @Arkansas State, Connecticut, Brigham Young. One of these days, I ought to compile a table of each team's most played FCS teams, because I highly suspect Jacksonville State would rate highly for Auburn and SE Missouri State would rate high for Mizzou.
10. Arkansas (0.5, 1): Texas-El Paso, Toledo, Texas Tech, Tennessee-Martin. Arkansas is playing two teams from Texas this year. I'm telling y'all, they want to go to the Big 12. (No, they really don't.)
11. Mississippi (0, 1): Tennessee-Martin, Fresno State, New Mexico State, @Memphis. I doubt that game in the Liberty Bowl is going to be much of a road game for the Rebels (Tennesseans essentially consider Memphis part of Mississippi anyway), but it could be interesting if the Tigers are feisty again this year.
12. Louisiana State (0, 1): McNeese State, @Syracuse, Eastern Michigan, Western Kentucky. Dear Les Miles: The turf in the Carrier Dome is artificial, it would probably be inadvisable to taste it. Yours Truly, asimsports.
13. Mississippi State (0, 1): @Southern Mississippi, Northwestern State, Troy, Louisiana Tech. Fun fact: all of these schools are located latitudinally south of Starkville.
14. Vanderbilt (0, 1): Western Kentucky, Austin Peay, @Middle Tennessee State, @Houston. I have a sinking feeling that Vandy could lose two or three of these. Should've figured out a way to hold on to James Franklin, I guess.

Rating the 2015 Non-Conference Slate: Pac-12

I guess I'm not surprised that the conference with a 3-way tie for first and a 4-way tie for second was the Pac-12. Or, at least, I probably shouldn't be.

As a reminder, my tie breakers are the number of FCS teams played followed by my subjective judgement of "strength".

1. Utah (1 legit, 0 FCS): Michigan, Utah State, @Fresno State. I can dig this schedule. You get a home date with newly-Harbaugh'ed Michigan, and you try to withstand Fresno attempting to  extract revenge for a blowout loss last year.
2. Stanford (1, 0): @Northwestern, Central Florida, Notre Dame. They don't get any "legit" credit for the Wildcats, but this is still solid.
3. Southern California (1, 0): Arkansas State, Idaho, @Notre Dame. Entirely buoyed by the visit to South Bend. Loses the tiebreaker to Stanford thanks to the Cardinal's trip to Evanston.
4. Oregon (1, 1): Eastern Washington, @Michigan State, Georgia State. Oregon-Michigan State should be great again, and is something we're really looking forward to.
5. Oregon State (1, 1): Weber State, @Michigan, San Jose State. It's been a down few years for the Beavers, but two wins in the non-conference slate should help them back to a bowl.
6. Arizona State (1, 1): N-Texas A&M, Cal Poly, New Mexico. I really struggled with how to do Cal Poly's name, since my thing is typing out the full name of schools. Unfortunately, the only acceptable forms for Cal Poly are: Cal Poly, California Polytechnic State University, and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. So I went with Cal Poly.
7. California (1, 1): Grambling State, San Diego State, @Texas. Of course Cal manages to schedule a road game to the only Texas city that resembles Berkeley in any way, shape, or form.
8. California-Los Angeles (0.5, 0): Virginia, @Nevada-Las Vegas, Brigham Young. Between UVA and BYU and no FCS teams, this schedule feels like it should rate better, but alas, it does not.
9. Washington (0.5, 1): @Boise State, Sacramento State, Utah State. This is the first visit by a Pac-10/12 team to Boise since Oregon State lost there in 2010, though what I was really hoping to say in this space was that it was the first such visit since the Puchin' LaGarrette Blount game in 2009, but alas.
10. Washington State (0, 1): Portland State, @Rutgers, Wyoming. The visit to Piscataway seems random, but I'll take it. Also watch out for the Wyoming uniform watch later this year.
11. Arizona (0, 1): Texas-San Antonio, @Nevada, Northern Arizona. I started thinking that my angle for this might be Arizona being brought low with a Rece Davis "You don't just walk in to Chris Ault Field at Mackay Stadium..." and then I remembered he's not hosting College Football Final anymore. Alas.
12. Colorado (0, 1): @Hawaii, Massachusetts, N-Colorado State, Nicholls State. No, Colorado, terrible teams are supposed to use that Hawaii away game at the end of the season so it's like a bowl game! Sheesh. They did at least use it to schedule an extra game, though.

Rating the 2015 Non-Conference Slate: Big 12

America's heartland is a place of hearty folk, unpredictable weather, and the source of our bread. Also, apparently, soft out-of-conference scheduling, at least at the bottom end. Let's get to it.

1. Texas (1.25 legit, 0 FCS): @Notre Dame, Rice, California. This is one of my favorite schedules. Two traditional powers that haven't met in 19 years, a game once mentioned in a JFK speech, and a visit from a Pac-12 team. Good job.
2. Oklahoma (0.5, 0): Akron, @Tennessee, Tulsa. Less inspiring, but I still like the trip to Knoxville.
3. Texas Tech (0.25, 1): Sam Houston State, Texas-El Paso, @Arkansas. Arkansas's recent history is why they're rated so low, otherwise this would be higher. It's a good sign from Texas Tech after a good run of terrible non-conference scheduling.
4. Texas Christian (0.25, 1): @Minnesota, Stephen F. Austin, Southern Methodist. On the road to a Big Ten team is nothing to sneeze at, even if that team is Minnesota.
5. Iowa State (0.25, 1): Northern Iowa, Iowa, @Toledo. This is where things start to fall off a cliff. First, you've got a fair chance that they might lose to one, or both, Iowa teams. Then there's a road trip to a MAC team? Wha?
6. Kansas (0, 1): South Dakota State, Memphis, @Rutgers. There's a pretty good chance Kansas may go 0-3 against this schedule. I'm not even kidding.
7. West Virginia (0, 1): Georgia Southern, Liberty, Maryland. I already praised Maryland for playing West Virginia, so I pretty much have nothing else to say about this one, except that Georgia Southern game in Morgantown has the potential to be interesting.
8. Oklahoma State (0, 1): @Central Michigan, Central Arkansas, Texas-San Antonio. Another MAC roadtrip! What is this world coming to?
9. Baylor (0, 1): @Southern Methodist, Lamar, Rice. The best thing I can say about this schedule is that two of the three teams used to be in the Southwest Conference, but if comes down to it again, blowing the doors off these teams is probably going to do Baylor little favors.
10. Kansas State (0, 1): South Dakota, @Texas-San Antonio, Louisiana Tech. K-State spices things up with a trip to the Alamodome, but that will mostly have the effect of making me have to remember that they may not be the Alamo Bowl's top selection if that's an issue in a few months.

Rating the 2015 Non-Conference Slate: Big Ten

The Big Ten has a reputation as a conference of beefy linemen, and many of their schools also provide the beef in their non-conference scheduling, though after the top few it proves to be a bit lean.

1. Nebraska (1.5 legit, 0 FCS): Brigham Young, South Alabama, @Miami, Southern Mississippi. Yes, that is the Miami in Florida, providing the Huskers with an intriguing road-trip that I am obligated to mention reminds one of the 90's. There's also a visit from the Stormin' Mormons for good measure.
2. Northwestern (1.25, 1): Stanford, Eastern Illinois, @Duke, Ball State. Stanford should provide an opening weekend barometer for both these teams. For Northwestern, it may be an early indicator if they can be a threat in the middle ranks of the Big Ten. A visit to Wallace Wade Stadium should also provide some intrigue for both sides.
3. Michigan State (1, 0): @Western Michigan, Oregon, Air Force, Central Michigan. Michigan State isn't the only Big Ten to have a weird away game, but considering WMU's head coach it's probably the more interesting of the two contests. Even though they don't get credit for it, I also like the Air Force appearance here.
4. Michigan (1, 0): @Utah, Oregon State, Nevada-Las Vegas, Brigham Young. If Michigan gets through this slate 4-0 in Jim Harbaugh's initial campaign, then the Michigan hype machine will be in full force come October.
5. Wisconsin (1, 0): N-Alabama, Miami, Troy, Hawaii. Wisconsin-Alabama is, of course, the headlining out-of-conference game of the season. Unfortunately, the rest of the schedule is nothing special (that's the Miami in Ohio), which is why it's only ranked fifth.
6. Minnesota (1, 0): Texas Christian, @Colorado State, Kent State, Ohio. Indeed, it was tough to even put this schedule behind Wisconsin, as TCU+Colorado State is arguably better than just Alabama. Nonetheless, this ranking also takes into account the relative prestige of Minnesota and Wisconsin at this point.
7. Ohio State (0.75, 0): @Virginia Tech, Hawaii, Northern Illinois, Western Michigan. Urban Meyer will seek to revenge himself in Blacksburg. I am not predicting good things for the Hokies. Otherwise, this schedule is pretty thin, but Ohio State did skate into the playoff with that VPI loss and, well, it pays to be in the Big Ten sometimes. (Where "sometimes" is "most of the time".)
8. Purdue (0.75, 1): @Marshall, Indiana State, Virginia Tech, Bowling Green State. Purdue could be in some real trouble in the hills of West Virginia, and if that doesn't go well for them then the rest of this schedule might not either.
9. Maryland (0.5, 1): Richmond, Bowling Green State, South Florida, @West Virginia. Even if it's not WVU-Pitt, I still approve of this Maryland-West Virginia game that's been happening the pats few years.
10. Illinois (0.5, 1): Kent State, Western Illinois, @North Carolina, Middle Tennessee State. So, remember that time Illinois fired their head coach last week? Yeah, this should be fun.
11. Rutgers (0.25, 1): Norfolk State, Washington State, Kansas, N-Army. Rutgers just barely gets some points from Wazzou, but otherwise there's not much here.
12. Iowa (0.25, 1): Illinois State, @Iowa State, Pittsburgh, North Texas. Believe it or not, more milquetoast schedules exist!
13. Pennsylvania State (0, 0): @Temple, Buffalo, San Diego State, Army. Like this one! Also, while it's an interesting way to rekindle that rivalry, one wonders if a visit by Penn State to Temple really is more about playing in a large NFL stadium on opening weekend.
14. Indiana (0, 1): Southern Illinois, Florida International, Western Kentucky, @Wake Forest. Given Indiana's luck, they'll beat Wake but lose to Western Kentucky.

Rating the 2015 Non-Conference Slate: ACC

As always, the first to go with the Atlantic Coast Conference. Let's do this. (Note: FCS teams are marked in italics.)

1. Virginia (2.25 legit, 1 FCS): @California-Los Angeles, Notre Dame, William & Mary, Boise State. By far the strongest non-conference schedule in college football this year. Though it's debatable whether Notre Dame is "non-conference" for ACC teams, but that's something we'll think about for next year. For now, every FBS non-conference team the Cavs play is rated. Ordinarily, we'd say this doesn't bode well for Mike London's job, but we've been saying that for what feels like two or three years at this point, so it's not entirely clear now what would actually get him fired.
2. Georgia Tech (2, 1): Alcorn State, Tulane, @Notre Dame, Georgia. This also rates as a tough schedule, but even then it feels like a bit of a cop-out because of Notre Dame's arrangement with the ACC and because Georgia is a yearly rivalry game. That said, this is still one of the toughest GT schedules (overall) that I can recall since I started following them in 2003, so I'd say it deserves some recognition.
3. Clemson (1.75, 1): Wofford, Appalachian State, Notre Dame, @South Carolina. Of course, the only reason we're not tied with Clemson is because Georgia is a 1 and South Carolina is a 0.75. If it were tied, I probably would've broken the tie by saying Appalachian State is better than Tulane.
4. Pittsburgh (1.25, 1): Youngstown State, @Akron, @Iowa, Notre Dame. This year it felt like there were a lot of road legs of 2-for-1's or 3-for-1's with lesser FBS teams, which hopefully I'll remember not to harp on too often. I'll save my other joke on this schedule for the Iowa blurb.
5. Louisville (1, 1): N-Auburn, Houston, Samford, @Kentucky. First off, good on you folks in the Commonwealth of Kentucky for moving your premier rivalry game to Thanksgiving. As for the schedule, that Louisville-Auburn game could recalibrate a lot of pre-season speculation very, very quickly.
6. Virginia Tech (1, 1): Ohio State, Furman, @Purdue, @East Carolina. VPI-Ohio State was, in retrospect, the most baffling result of 2014. I... would not expect that again.
7. Miami (1, 1): Bethune-Cookman, @Florida Atlantic, Nebraska, @Cincinnati. Miami-Nebraska: a match up of two teams that badly wish it were the 80's or 90's again.
8. Syracuse (1, 1): Rhode Island, Central Michigan, Louisiana State, @South Florida. I suggest Syracuse fans take what they can get and treat the game in Tampa as a bowl game, because that's about as good as it's probably going to get for them this year.
9. Florida State (1, 1): Texas State, South Florida, Tennessee-Chattanooga, @Florida. This is usually the point in the rundown when I start running out of things to say, and this schedule is no exception. It is, however, good for a rebuilding reloading Seminole squad.
10. Wake Forest (1, 1): Elon, @Army, Indiana, @Notre Dame. Deacons versus Priests: the ultimate showdown! (... probably not)
11. Boston College (1, 2): Maine, Howard, Northern Illinois, Notre Dame. Two FCS teams, good job, Boston College: you now face an uphill road to bowl eligibility!
12. North Carolina (0.75, 2): N-South Carolina, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical, Illinois, Delaware. This is the first year in a while where I can't recall reading a swarm of article proclaiming that this will be, in fact, Carolina's year. Which probably means they're going to go 9-3 or something. Of course, playing two FCS teams and Illinois helps with that.
13. Duke (0.25, 1): @Tulane, North Carolina Central, Northwestern, @Army. Army somehow got both Wake Forest and Duke at home this year, good on them! That said, I know Duke is... Duke but still, guys, you're a Power 5 team, you can't have two road games both against non-Power 5 teams.
14. North Carolina State (0, 1): Troy, Eastern Kentucky, @Old Dominion, @South Alabama. Yep, ODU is full FBS this year (along with Georgia Southern and Appalachian State, which I should've mentioned earlier). See what I said re: two road games in the above Duke blurb.

Up next: the Big Ten.

Rating the 2015 Non-Conference Slate: Prologue

Better late than never, it's time once again for our review of the non-conference schedules for all of the Power 5 teams.

First, a quick explanation. Every year, my brother and I rate the attractiveness of each team in the Power 5 conferences plus a select few others on a scale from 0 to 1. I then apply these ratings to each team's non-coference schedule. The whole thing is a subjective exercise essentially designed to judge how excited one might be for a team's schedule, but it's a fun overview and provides an additional preview for the kind of games we usually get in September.

Cincinnati was unrated this year, which means the only teams outside of the Power 5 with ratings are Notre Dame (1), Brigham Young (0.5), and Boise State (0.5).

I usually close the first post with a quick snapshot of each conference's average rating, so here's that:

1. Southeastern (0.643)
2. Big 12 (0.611)
3. Pac-12 (0.521)
4. Atlantic Coast (0.482)
5. Big Ten (0.464)

Compared to last year, the Big 12 has closed the gap with the SEC just slightly, while the other conferences remain unchanged. Of course, I now just noticed that last year I put the ACC behind the Big Ten despite their ratings being the same. Whoops!

Either way, first up, the ACC.

This Weekend in College Football: Week 5

Week 5 is also a week of discovery, as lots of teams face real competition for the first time, or have a chance to show than an earlier slip-up was just that. Also, this will be the first week with "proper" previews this season, as I'm fully back from my vacation.

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Noon:

• Tennessee @ Georgia (ESPN): It's hard to see how the currently formed Volunteers can win this one.
• Wyoming @ Michigan State (ESPN2): Wyoming is 3-1... but... yeah. Sparty all the way here.
• South Florida @ Wisconsin (ESPNU): USF allowed 315 years rushing to NC State. This does not bode well for their defense against the Badgers.
• Tulane @ Rutgers (ESPNEWS): Rutgers should, and I emphasize should, be able to take care of Tulane.
• Texas-El Paso @ Kansas State (FSN): Weird things can always happen against UTEP, but this would be super weird.
• Texas Christian @ Southern Methodist (CBSS): It doesn't look to be getting any better for SMU's season of utter disarray.
• Northwestern @ Pennsylvania State (BTN): We'll find a lot about both these teams so far. For whatever reason, James Franklin seems to have drained whatever talent and wherewithal Vanderbilt had under his tenure and transported it wholesale to State College, though. So I guess I'll take Penn State.
• Vanderbilt @ Kentucky (SEC): Speaking of Vandy, Kentucky should be able to get some revenge for the last few years here.

12:30:

• Western Michigan @ Virginia Tech (ACC): VPI gets a good chance to recover here against the Broncos.
• Colorado State @ Boston College (ACC/RSN): I'm not sure how good or bad these teams are, so I guess I'm going with BC by default.

3:30

• Arkansas vs. Texas Agricultural and Mechanical (@Arlington, TX; CBS): I saw a tweet earlier this week that Arkansas's starting offensive line averages 328 pounds per man. Suffice it to say, they're in the top 10 in rushing offense. However, TAMU is plenty good in rushing and is 4th in passing. What TAMU hasn't faced so far in their very soft out-of-conference schedule is any sort of legitimate offense, either on the air or the ground, so while I think they'll still win comfortably it will be their first test.
• Florida State @ North Carolina State  (ABC/ESPN2): So it turns out Florida State is a much better team with their best player, huh? The Wolfpack will probably pick up their first loss here.
• Minnesota @ Michigan (ABC/ESPN2): Boy howdy, things sure look bad up in Ann Arbor after last week's moribund loss to Utah. ("Moribund" may still be putting it generously.) That said, at least on paper, Minnesota still has no business in this game. In their one game against legitimate competition, they lost 30-7 to TCU. This might be a low-scoring, ugly game. I'll take the Gophers.
• Wake Forest @ Louisville (ESPNU): Louisville.
• Western Kentucky @ Navy (CBSS): Navy should be able to take care of business here, emphasis on the "should".

 4:00:

• Stanford @ Washington (FOX): Washington is 4-0, but again, hasn't really played anyone. Again, sort of going with Stanford by default here, but my real hunch is that we'll find out a bit about both these teams here.
• Texas @ Kansas (FS1): I don't care how "good" Duke is these days, losing 41-3 is not a sign of a quality football team. Longhorns should roll.
• Temple @ Connecticut (ESPNEWS): UConn is 122nd in the country in scoring. That's... not good. It always feels odd picking Temple, but here we are.
• Louisiana Tech @ Auburn (SEC): Auburn.
• Colorado @ California (Pac12): Cal, in their quest for their first Pac-12 game in... a while suffered one heck of a punch in the stomach against Arizona last weekend. With 5:21 to go, Cal lead 45-30, and then proceeding to give up 19 points, including a last weekend Hail Mary to seal the loss. Fortunately for them, they have another pretty good chance against a not terribly good Colorado team.

6:00: Cincinnati @ Ohio State (BTN): Cincy took the first two weeks of the season off, meaning that they're 2-0 and still haven't played out their OOC schedule. Basically, we know even less about them than all the other teams I've been complaining about having a lack of information on. How will they fare against their in-state big brother? I dunno. Probably not?

7:00:

• Missouri @ South Carolina (ESPN): How do you lose to Indiana? How? South Carolina should probably be able to figure things out here.
• Boise State @ Air Force (CBSS): I was going to give Air Force more of a chance here, but then I saw they allowed 38 points to Georgia State, so...
• Duke @ Miami (ESPN2): This was supposed to be the Duke Johnson show for the Hurricanes. It sort of still is, as he averages over 6 yards a carry, but less than 100 yards a game. Duke, meanwhile, is firing on all cylinders offensively, but... they have played absolutely no one. Given what happened last year, I won't be shocked if the Blue Devils win, but I'm not banking on it.
• North Carolina @ Clemson (ESPNU): Last week was not a "Clemsonsing", technically, as they frittered away the win against an otherwise good team, not the Marylands and Wake Forests of the world. They should be able to take care of the Tarheels, who yet again do not appear to be as good as expected.

7:30:

• New Mexico State @ Louisiana State (SEC): LSU.
• Memphis @ Mississippi (SEC/FSN): I'm not sure I can cope with the idea that Memphis may not be a raging tire fire this year (see: solid win over MTSU, loss by 7 to UCLA), but I don't think that will quite translate in being able to hang with Ole Miss.

8:00:

• Notre Dame vs. Syracuse (@East Rutherford, NJ; ABC): I don't know if Notre Dame is any good or not, but I feel pretty good about saying that Syracuse isn't.
• Baylor @ Iowa State (FOX): Even if Iowa State's defense wasn't awful, well, their offense sure as hell isn't going to be able to keep up.
• Texas State @ Tulsa (ESPNEWS): Goodness Tulsa has been awful this year. Okay, sure, you expect them to lose to Oklahoma, even if it 52-7. But getting blown out 50-21 by FAU? Oi. I think this might be the first time I've picked Texas State to win.
• Washington State @ Utah (Pac12): Well, Utah will face an offense that at least has some semblance of an idea of how the pass the ball, unlike last week. Wazzou doesn't do anything else well enough, though, but this may well be the best game in prime time, considering the rest of this slate.

9:00: Illinois @ Nebraska (BTN): Nebraska may be the best team in the Big Ten. (That still feels odd to type.) Illinois, not so much.

10:30:

• Oregon State @ Southern California (ESPN): USC's loss to Boston College still feels like a practical joke of some sort, but, well, it isn't. Still, it's hard to call this one for the Beavers, especially on the road. Could be some solid late-evening viewing, though.
• Nevada @ San Jose State (CBSS): Nevada might be halfway decent, which is always a good recipe for making the Mountain West more fun. I think they'll be able to take the Spartans.

Rating the 2014 Non-Conference Slate: Epilogue

And finally, the conclusion.

For all the talk about increased schedule strength in the era of the College Football Playoff, has it panned out in the first year? Let's find out.

First, the shame list, which is the list of teams that play more than one Football Championship Subdivision and/or transitional teams: Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, and Vanderbilt. (Well, that's an improvement over last year, at least.)

Next up, the list of teams that play zero FCS and/or transitional teams: Southern California, California-Los Angeles, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Pennsylvania State. That's up from five last year, so actually so far we do have stronger looking schedules. So far.

Let's take a look at the worst of college football's out-of-conference schedules:

3. Dishonorable mentions: Wake Forest (two road games?), Missouri, Mississippi State.
2. Vanderbilt (0, 1.5): Temple, Massachusetts, Charleston Southern, Old Dominion. While I did say that this is a schedule one would expect for the Vandys of the world, that doesn't mean it's a good schedule by any measure.
1. North Carolina State (0, 2): Georgia Southern, Old Dominion, @South Florida, Presbyterian. This schedule is just plain awful. Two transitional teams and a normal FCS team? It boggles the mind, really. Luckily for NC State (otherwise I'm sure they wouldn't have done this) those games do count for bowl eligibility. 

 Let's wash that out with an overview of the best schedules in the land.

1. Florida State (3, 1): N-Oklahoma State, Citadel, Notre Dame, Florida. This is a pretty epic out-of-conference schedule, folks. Florida State can run this gauntlet, then they will definitely have an argument to be in the title game with a loss.
2. Clemson (2, 1): @Georgia, South Carolina State, Georgia State, South Carolina. This looks pretty good until you remember one of the games is a yearly rivalry, but still if Clemson can win either or both of those games it will be a platform they can build on for this season.
3. Georgia (1.75, 1): Clemson, Troy, Charleston Southern, Georgia Tech. The luster is starting to fade a little bit here, since Georgia Tech only gets a 0.75 rating because A5 and I are biased.
4. Honorable mentions: Miami (1.25), Northwestern (1.25), Michigan State (for playing Oregon), Oregon (for playing Michigan State), Texas (for playing BYU and UCLA), and UCLA (for playing Texas). While I'm at it, I guess that means I also need to throw in Wisconsin, LSU, and Nebraska.

Overall, compared to last year maybe it's not that bad? But then again, we do have numbers. Here's the ranking of each conference's out-of-conference schedules:

1. ACC (0.207)
2. Big Ten (0.203)
3. Pac-12 (0.188)
4. Big 12 (0.183)
5. SEC (0.147)

All these numbers are up from last year. So maybe there is hope for the future of out-of-conference scheduling. Which is good. As might be obvious by the fact I do this every year, I find these schedules an unique and interesting part of the college football. Some noise was made this past off-season about some coaches wanting to do away with these games, under the guise of getting rid of the "body-bag" games against FCS foes. The FCS issue isn't that simple, though. While I prefer that teams not play FCS teams, is it really feasible to get rid of all those games entirely? I'm not favor of that if the proposed solution of "play one conference games" is adopted, that's for sure.

Either way, the previews for the first weekend of the season will be up soon. It's almost time!

Rating the 2014 Non-Conference Slate: SEC

And finally, the one conference to rule them all, the SEC.

1. Georgia (1.75 legit, 1 FCS): Clemson, Troy, Charleston Southern, Georgia Tech. Two rivalry games are good enough to easily top the list for the SEC. Of course, it is nice to UGA and Clemson meet and it's kind of a shame they don't play more often.
2. Tennessee (1, 1): Utah State, Arkansas State, @Oklahoma, Tennessee-Chattanooga. Don't sleep on the the Aggies from Utah, Vols fans: the last few seasons they've either beaten other Power 5 foes or lost by less than five points. Also notable here is, of course, the road game in Norman.
3. Florida (1, 1): Idaho, Eastern Michigan, Eastern Kentucky, @Florida State. Suffice it say, while Florida State is probably better than Oklahoma, Utah State was enough of a factor for me to give Tennessee the nudge to second. However...
4. South Carolina (1, 1): East Carolina, Furman, South Alabama, @Clemson. I'll admit I didn't apply that principal consistently. A popular darkhorse this season is ECU, but I didn't really give South Carolina any credit for them and instead rated them behind Florida on the strength of Florida State over Clemson.
5. Auburn (0.75, 1): San Jose State, @Kansas State, Louisiana Tech, Samford. I can't find any schedule information for beyond next year, but I suspect that some point in the future Auburn fans will probably need to know the way to San Jose. (And if that does happen, I would totally go. Provided I'm in town.) Otherwise, there's a game against K-State that could be interesting depending on how well Bill Synder's juco-based magics have worked this year.
6. Louisiana State (0.75, 1): N-Wisconsin, Sam Houston State, Louisiana-Monroe, New Mexico State. I discovered today that apparently LSU really doesn't like it when you write "Louisiana State" instead of "LSU". Which means that I'm going to keep doing that, because that's just how we roll here. In other news, it's hard to imagine two fanbases more broadly similar yet utterly different than Wisconsin and LSU.
7. Alabama (0.5, 1): N-West Virginia, Florida Atlantic, Southern Mississippi, Western Carolina. Saban is robbed of a chance to return to his ancestral homeland since the WVU game is a neutral site affair. Otherwise, this is sort of a weak schedule for a national title contender, but then again, if Alabama does end up 13-0 it won't really matter.
8. Arkansas (0.5, 1): Nicholls State, @Texas Tech, Northern Illinois, Alabama-Birmingham. I figured one of these games would be Arkansas's obligatory Little Rock game for the season, but apparently they're going to play Georgia there this year. Huh.
9. Mississippi (0.5, 1): N-Boise State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Memphis, Presbyterian. If Boise is still a national player with the departure of their erstwhile coach, then this is their chance to prove it. For Ole Miss, well, there's no real upside to this schedule. They're picked to be better this year and maybe a longshot contender in the SEC, and for that to happen they need to go 4-0.
10. Kentucky (0.5, 1): Tennessee-Martin, Ohio, Louisiana-Monroe, @Louisville. Yes, the Louisville game is listed last. And why? Because the game is now Thanksgiving weekend, where all rivalry games belong (provided you only have one rival, of course). The last time the game was even played in November was in 1914. Of course, the two teams have only been meeting regularly 1994, so it's a relatively newfangled game.
11. Missouri (0, 1): South Dakota State, @Toledo, Central Florida, Indiana. A5 (he helps with the ratings) and I realized after the fact that maybe UCF deserved some "legit" points after their season last year, but it was a tough call. I'll give them some credit by rating Missouri's schedule head of TAMU's, though.
12. Texas Agricultural and Mechanical (0, 1): Lamar, Rice, @Southern Methodist, Louisiana-Monroe. Going on the road to SMU isn't that weird, I mean, that used to be a regular thing. You know, twenty years ago. Either way, it's also nice to see TAMU play Rice, even if I can't use the "why does Rice play Texas" joke because a) they're playing TAMU and b) I used that joke like four years ago.
13. Mississippi State (0, 1): Southern Mississippi, Alabama-Birmingham, @South Alabama, Tennessee-Martin. I just want so badly to be watching College Football Final the evening of the 13th and hear Rece Davis say "You just don't walk into Ladd-Peebles Stadium!" except I'm going to be in Europe at the time and I'll probably miss it. Alas.
14. Vanderbilt (0, 1.5): Temple, Massachusetts, Charleston Southern, Old Dominion. Well, if I were Vandy, this is probably the kind of out-of-conference schedule I'd strive for, so I can't say I blame them. It's still pretty lame though.

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.)
12. 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.

Rating the 2014 Non-Conference Slate: Big 12

Our next stop (of two) of our tour of inaccurately named conferences is the Big 12.

1. Texas (1 legit, 0 FCS): North Texas, Brigham Young, N-California-Los Angeles. The UCLA game is at Jerry Jones's Intergalactic Space Palace, robbing us of the chance of seeing that always sumptuous looking Rose Bowl turf¹. Well, other than for UCLA's home games. Oh, and while I don't doubt that it'll be green, considering the current weather conditions in most of California it could just be paint.
2. Oklahoma State (1, 1): N-Florida State, Missouri State, Texas-San Antonio. Speaking of the Space Palace, it'll also host one of the season's premier inter-conference games right in the first week. Florida State is better than UCLA (well, probably, and the Bruins aren't supposed to be slouches this year), Texas won out by not having any FCS teams.
3. West Virginia (1, 1): N-Alabama, Towson, @Maryland. However, Oklahoma State did place ahead of the Mountaineers based on the strength of their one legit game, even if just barely. Besides, while I do give some credit for having multiple Power 5 teams, Maryland is, well, Maryland.
4. Kansas State (1, 1): Stephen F. Austin, Auburn, Texas-El Paso. Maryland was enough for the 'Neers to get the nudge over Kansas State, though.
5. Oklahoma (0.5, 0): Louisiana Tech, @Tulsa, Tennessee. From the looks of it, Oklahoma-Tulsa appears to have been a 3-for-1, but it's hard to know for sure. Either way, the Sooners did make the trek up to Tulsa back in 2007 and then laid their usual shellacking on the Golden Hurricane.
6. Iowa State (0.5, 1): North Dakota State, @Iowa, Toledo. Iowa State may not win any of these games. North Dakota State beat Kansas State last year en route to the FCS national title. There's not usually lines on games against FCS opponents, but the Bison may be the favorites.
7. Texas Tech (0.25, 1): Central Arkansas, @Texas-El Paso, Arkansas. It's partly a function of geography, but I do enjoy when there's some historical conference foe action going on. Which is good, because that's all that's going on with Texas Tech's schedule.
8. Kansas (0.25, 1): Southeast Missouri State, @Duke, Central Michigan. I should probably save this for the game preview, but I can't resist. What happened the last time Kansas went on the road to an ACC school, you ask? Well...
9. Texas Christian (0, 1): Samford, Minnesota, @Southern Methodist. Okay, I'll go ahead and do the SMU thing here. So SMU this season will play three former Southwest Conference teams in out-of-conference play (TCU, Baylor, and Texas A&M). In addition, they're still in a conference with Houston. So they're basically halfway to getting the band back together! Alas. A world where all the Texas schools (and Arkansas) played each other was just too perfect, apparently.
10. Baylor (0, 1): Southern Methodist, Northwestern State, @Buffalo. One is tempted to think that Baylor scheduled this when they were still awful. And indeed, they last visited the Queen City in 2007. And indeed, they've seen had two home against Buffalo, and there are no more future contests scheduled, so one could conclude that it was a straight-up 2-for-2 deal. I suspect that if the series is renewed ever that will not be the case again.

1: Well, maybe if you're Les Miles, otherwise it probably just always looks nice.