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Joel Klatt offers fix for unbalanced scheduling issues in college football
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Joel Klatt has an idea to fix what he sees as a major issue with college football scheduling.
The Associated Press Top 25 Poll entering Week 5 of the college football season features 6 undefeated SEC teams in the top 12. But not all of these unblemished records are created equally.
Missouri, for example, is 4-0 with arguably its best win coming at home against Boston College. Meanwhile, Texas owns a road win over Michigan, Alabama has a road victory at Wisconsin, Georgia has a neutral site triumph over Clemson, and Tennessee has victories over NC State and Oklahoma, the latter of which came on the road.
Simply put, the schedules in the SEC are unbalanced.
Even when you get into conference play, for example, Missouri doesn’t have to play some of the best teams in the SEC. Of the 5 fellow SEC teams ranked ahead of the Tigers in the AP Top 25 Poll this week, only a matchup with the Crimson Tide is on their schedule – Oct. 26 in Tuscaloosa.
Meanwhile, Georgia – after visiting Alabama this weekend – still has to play at Texas, at Ole Miss and Tennessee at home.
It isn’t difficult to see whose schedule is tougher.
Joel Klatt of Fox Sports seems to have a solution.
He laid it out recently on his podcast, The Joel Klatt Show:
“So, the randomness of how schedules are made in the super conference era has got to end,” Klatt said. “This cannot be the schedule lottery at this point. I think it’s too important. And it’s too easy of a fix. Teams that finish higher in previous years should have more difficult schedules in subsequent years.”
Here’s the full clip:
“This cannot be the schedule lottery at this point.” @joelklatt sounds off on the drastic differences in schedules between teams in college football Is there a potential fix? pic.twitter.com/yeqzfpfRS7
— The Joel Klatt Show: A CFB Pod (@JoelKlattShow) September 25, 2024
Again, Missouri is a good example for this exercise. The Tigers went 11-2 overall last season, 6-2 in the SEC, and beat a 7th-ranked Ohio State team in the Cotton Bowl. According to sports-reference, their strength of schedule this season is 32nd in all of FBS. Last season, it was 13th. Why are the Tigers playing a seemingly softer schedule after such a good finish in 2023?
Schedule imbalance is another thing college football still has to figure out.
