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Arkansas and LSU will get to the meat of their schedules a little later than Ole Miss, but the three SEC schools have the toughest schedules in America, according to the NCAA method of determining such.
The NCAA method calculates the combined win/loss record of a team’s opponents from the year before.
From fbsschedules.com, the trio of SEC schools tops the list of the toughest slates for the upcoming season. Auburn is fourth and Alabama at No. 8 makes it five SEC teams in the top 10.
Here is how the SEC came out:
1. LSU – 108-52, 67.5%
2. Arkansas – 104-52, 66.7%
3. Ole Miss – 102-52, 66.2%
4. Auburn – 100-56, 64.1%
8. Alabama – 97-58, 62.6%
15. Texas A&M – 91-60, 60.3%
23. South Carolina – 89-63, 58.6%
27. Tennessee – 89-64, 58.2%
30. Mississippi State – 87-64, 57.6%
38. Vanderbilt – 85-66, 56.3%
51. Kentucky – 84-70, 54.5%
81. Missouri – 75-75, 50.0%
84. Georgia – 74-76, 49.3%
103. Florida – 69-78, 46.9%
Observations
- LSU has Ole Miss and Alabama at home and visits Arkansas back-to-back-to-back. That’s the way things go in the SEC. Those games begin Oct. 22 with a bye week following Ole Miss’ visit to Baton Rouge. Ole Miss on the other hand has Florida State, Georgia and Alabama all in the first month of the season. Both stretches are playoff-determining runs.
- At Nos. 5-7 are USC, Wisconsin and BYU. You can easily dismiss the NCAA method to determine strength of schedule, but you can’t dismiss the fact that all three of those teams are on SEC schedules. Alabama opens with USC. LSU opens at Wisconsin and Mississippi State goes to BYU on Oct. 14 (ahem, for homecoming). Florida State is No. 10. The Seminoles and Ole Miss play a primetime game on Labor Day in Orlando.
- Mississippi State has won 19 games in the last two seasons. Coming off both the 2014 and 2015 seasons, the Bulldogs’ opponent winning percentage was the sixth-worst in the SEC. Rethink that when November arrives. The Bulldogs have four straight weeks of Texas A&M, Alabama, Arkansas and Ole Miss.
- Notice the five SEC teams in the top 10 are all from the SEC West, and the final five teams are all from the East. Giving No. 84 Georgia and No. 103 Florida too much grief isn’t fair, considering they play less-than-favorable Kentucky and Missouri. Throw non-conference games in against Southern, Georgia Southern and New Mexico State and you have a bad mix for the NCAA method.
- The SEC can catch as much flack as the other Power 5 conferences want to dish out, but numbers don’t lie. Based on last season, the SEC West has the toughest four schedules in the country, and all four schedules include one another. It is a blessing that can vault a team right into national championship contention or crush dreams week after week.
