TCU Strength of Schedule: Top 10 or in the 50s? Depends Where You Look

Remember last week when Inside Blitz brought Alabama and Notre Dame fans the nightmare Playoff scenario? TCU coasts through an easy schedule and gets into the playoff with one loss, while the 2-loss Tide and Irish are snubbed? Well it’s all coming together nicely (clasps hands like Gargamel) for the Horned Frogs.

Tonight, when the Playoff rankings are revealed, TCU will have climbed from 7th, where it was last week. Nobody could have passed the Horned Frogs; Ole Miss suffered another loss, and should slip out of the Top 10.

Here’s tomorrow’s storyline, today: Strength of schedule will become an issue.

According to an old Team Rankings strength of schedule metric, TCU has played the 8th toughest schedule in the country. The Team Rankings new strength of schedule metric has TCU playing the 9th toughest schedule in the country.

Good news, Fort Worth!

But according to Sports Reference, TCU is much further down the list in SOS – ranking 52nd, barely above San Jose State. (If you don’t like the SEC and would like to projectile vomit, take a look at the Sports Reference Top 10 SOS. There’s only one non-SEC team in there.)

Why the vast discrepancy?

The Minnesota win is a prime example of the differences in determining strength of schedule.

On the surface, TCU’s 30-7 home romp of Minnesota is a “good” win. The Gophers are 6-2. Except when you look closer at Minnesota, which Sports Reference’s method does, that victory isn’t impressive: the Gophers beat horrible non-conference teams, and barely beat Big 10 bottom-feeders Northwestern and Purdue (at home!). It gets worse: the Gophers lost to lowly Illinois Saturday. Ahead for Minnesota: Iowa, Ohio State, Nebraska and Wisconsin. Soon, that 6-2 Gophers squad is very likely to be 6-6.

The SOS difference is also significant when you look at Michigan State. Team Rankings: 27th. Sports Reference: 79th. Everyone chirps about the Spartans playing Oregon tough in Autzen, leading in the third quarter before crumbling in the 4th. What nobody else talks about: Michigan State has only beaten two teams with a winning record: Nebraska (27-22, when the Spartans nearly blew the game in the 4th quarter) and Jacksonville State in the opener.

Which brings us to Elimination Weekend.

TCU beating Kansas State would officially trigger the debate we started last week: Should the 1-loss Frogs, with a weak strength of schedule, beat out a 2-loss team from the SEC? Because that’s where we are headed. Hey Auburn, playing the toughest schedule in the country doesn’t mean anything. Want to get in the playoffs? Line up the cupcakes.