College football: Ranking the nonconference schedules
Ranking the nonconference schedules of the teams in college football's six major conferences:
1. Michigan: Alabama at Arlington, Texas; Air Force, Massachusetts, at Notre Dame. Now that's a schedule. Hail to the victors. One dud game out of four. Hey, Wolverines, you make 1973 proud.
2. Syracuse: Northwestern, Southern Cal, Stony Brook, at Minnesota, at Missouri. I have to admit, I didn't know that schedules like this existed anymore. The Orange is playing four nonconference games against major-conference foes. Four!
3. Miami: at Kansas State, Bethune-Cookman, Notre Dame at Chicago, South Florida. Super, super schedule. USF is only the third-best nonconference game.
4. Michigan State: Boise State, at Central Michigan, Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan. Wow, home games against Boise State and Notre Dame. The Spartans also host Ohio State, Nebraska, Iowa and Northwestern. That's a season ticket.
5. Clemson: Auburn at Atlanta, Ball State, Furman, South Carolina. Auburn and South Carolina. Good job, Clemson.
6. South Florida: Chattanooga, at Nevada, at Ball State, Florida State, at Miami. Excellent schedule by the Bulls. One automatic win. Two road games at mid-majors. Two games against traditional powers.
7. Oregon State: Nicholls State, Wisconsin, at Brigham Young: The Badgers and BYU. Excellent work, Beavers.
8. Georgia Tech: Presbyterian, Middle Tennessee, BYU, at Georgia. Interesting pair of marquee games, from the traditional in-state rivalry to Brigham Young.
9. Pittsburgh: Youngstown State, Virginia Tech, Gardner-Webb, at Buffalo, at Notre Dame. The Panthers have to feel a little deprived. They keep losing traditional rivals. Penn State won't play anymore. The Backyard Brawl with West Virginia is on hold until conference realignment settles down.
10. Virginia: Richmond, Penn State, at TCU, Louisiana Tech. Who knows what the Nittany Lions will be like in the post-Joe Paterno era, but either way, solid schedule. Kudos to the Cavaliers.
11. Southern Cal: Hawaii; Syracuse at East Rutherford, N.J.; Notre Dame. You can always count on the Trojans for quality entertainment.
12. UCLA: at Rice, Nebraska, Houston. Not many teams from Texas play both LA teams. Not many teams from LA play both Houston teams.
13. Louisville: Kentucky, Missouri State, North Carolina, at Florida International, at Southern Mississippi. Not a bad schedule. No one considers a trip to Hattiesburg, Miss., easy. And FIU is getting better.
14. Missouri: Southeastern Louisiana, Arizona State, at Central Florida, Syracuse. Hey, Missouri. Three decent games? They'll kick you out of the SEC.
15. Washington: San Diego State, at LSU, Portland State. Too bad UW isn't any better. That game in the Bayou would be good.
16. Maryland: William & Mary, at Temple, Connecticut, at West Virginia. Temple waxed Maryland 38-7 last year at College Park; now the Terrapins go to Temple, plus play UConn and West Virginia.
17. Arizona State: Northern Arizona, Illinois, at Missouri. I suppose I should rank higher anyone that's playing a Big Ten school and an SEC school, but I just have little regard for Illinois.
18. California: Nevada, Southern Utah, at Ohio State. I have to confess. I didn't know Southern Utah had a football team.
19. Florida State: Murray State, Savannah State, at South Florida, Florida. What a schedule the Seminoles would have if West Virginia hadn't bolted and been replaced, out of necessity, by Savannah State.
20. Boston College: Maine, at Northwestern, at Army, Notre Dame. This schedule would rank No. 1 in the Big 12.
21. South Carolina: East Carolina, Alabama-Birmingham, Wofford, at Clemson. Playing East Carolina will be dicey for the Gamecocks. No other SEC school has scheduled the Pirates since 1998.
22. Stanford: San Jose State, Duke, at Notre Dame. The quality is starting to thin.
23. Temple: Villanova, Maryland, at Penn State, at Army. Still short a game, but even if the Owls added a cupcake, they wouldn't fall on this list. Maryland and Penn State are decent games.
24. Wake Forest: Liberty, Army, at Notre Dame, Vanderbilt. If anyone had reason to dumb down a schedule, it's Wake. But this is smart and solid.
25. Virginia Tech: Austin Peay, at Pitt, Bowling Green, Cincinnati. Pittsburgh joins the ACC next season, but until then, the Panthers are a solid nonleague foe.
26. North Carolina State: Tennessee at Atlanta, at Connecticut, South Alabama, The Citadel. Decent schedule. Even South Alabama has joined Division I-A.
27. Oklahoma: at UTEP, Florida A&M, Notre Dame. Play a real game, like the Fighting Irish, and you zoom to the top of the Big 12 list.
28. Northwestern: at Syracuse, Vanderbilt, Boston College, South Dakota. Not really a marquee game in the bunch. But three solid games out of four. Hard to argue much with that.
29. Iowa State: Tulsa, at Iowa, Western Illinois. Strange, how there's no correlation between program prominence and scheduling prowess. This isn't a bad schedule. Road game against a Big Ten rival, home game against a decent program in Tulsa. The automatic-win game. Kudos to the Cyclones.
30. Nebraska: Southern Mississippi, at UCLA, Arkansas State, Idaho State. Southern Miss lifts the Huskers above all the other let's-play-just-one-real-team Big Ten schedules.
31. Kansas State: Missouri State, Miami, North Texas. What kind of bizarro world are we living in? K-State is among the upper half in scheduling might?
32. Florida: Bowling Green, Louisiana-Lafayette, Jacksonville State, at Florida State. Classic SEC schedule. Three automatic wins, one good game.