Help! SOS - Strength of Schedule

I occasionally listened to the Bill & Spence sports talk show in the afternoons. Then Spence left, so it was just the Bill show. I like Bill. Now they've added Hans Olsen. I think adding a BYU guy to the U of U sports station was a bad idea. Especially if that guy is Hans Olsen.

He gets on today to excitedly brag about BYU's strength of schedule. It took me back to the days of the U of U moving on to the Pac-12 (See this post). He mentioned some of the teams BYU is slated to play in 2013. Teams like Wisconsin, Notre Dame, Boise State, Texas, and (gulp) Hawaii. I don't know their whole schedule, but I'm assuming teams like Idaho, New Mexico State, and Weber State will be rounding it out.

Let's address the 5 supposedly big-name teams. First off, Hawaii? Really? They finished 6-7 in the WAC conference. Why are they even mentioned in the same sentence as Wisconsin? This is a typical small-team fan base who wants to make their schedule seem more impressive. Adding Hawaii to that list tells me more of where BYU fans are at mentally with what it means to have a tough schedule.

Texas is the second team on this list. Historically, Texas is a strong program. Lately, they suck. They're a middle-of-the-road team in the Big 12. Not the same draw as 4 years ago.

Boise State is a strong team. They're a little overrated but a nice team to put on your list.

Notre Dame is a tough team, and Wisconsin is a top 10 team.

Now let's take a look at some other schedules.

I'll start with my team, Ohio State. BYU is bragging about these 5 teams, let's see if I can find at least 5 better. Last year, OSU started off its conference play with Michigan State. They then played 3 consecutive teams ranked in the top 25 in Nebraska, Illinois, and Wisconsin. They finished it off with 2 ranked teams in Penn State and Michigan.

All of these games are conference games. This what OSU goes through every year. Let's take a look at Florida, the team OSU played in their bowl game last year (add that to the pile).

Florida played 4 straight ranked teams: Alabama, LSU, Auburn, and Georgia. Two games later they played another ranked team in South Carolina, and they finished it off with Florida State.

This is what teams who play in big conferences go through EVERY year, not just one year. Ute fans are quickly finding that out, even though they had the softest Pac-12 schedule last year. They won't be so fortunate when Oregon and Stanford are on their schedule, but they know now what it's like to go through the grind of tough games week after week. BYU still doesn't know.

Sorry Hans, you still need SOS.