College football rankings by strength of schedule: Billy Napier faces an uphill climb

College football is not about how good you are on a given day. It is more about how good you are when your best is required. While playing in Power Four leagues like the Big Ten and SEC can afford teams with quality losses a little more wiggle room to qualify for the College Football Playoff than in other leagues, they still have to play brutal schedules more often than not. Here is our latest proof.

ESPN's Bill Connelly released his SP+ rankings to start the offseason off on the right foot. In the wake of that, he used his formulas to rank each team's strength of schedule (SOS). To put is as simply as I can, the SOS implies what an average top-five team in the country's projected winning percentage would be attempting to navigate one team's schedule. The lower the number, the more difficult it is.

So without further ado, these are the 25 hardest schedules for this year heading into spring practice.

As you can see, Oklahoma and Florida have the two hardest schedules in the country at a projected 0.771 winning percentage, should an average top-five team play it. Since Oklahoma and Florida are not average top-five teams this year, the Sooners are projected to go 6.3-5.7 with their slate, while Florida is just a tick better with a projected 6.6-5.4 overall record, based on their season schedules.

For further context, Connelly tweeted out the top 40 hardest schedules in the country over on X.

Among the top 40, you can find all 16 SEC teams, 17 of 18 Big Ten teams (no Maryland), and 7 ACC teams (Boston College, Clemson, Florida State, Miami, North Carolina State, Stanford, Syracuse). As you can see, there is no Notre Dame, no Big 12 team and no team from the upper echelon of the Group of Five. It is so incredibly early, but this is why the Big Ten and SEC should get eight teams in.

Let's now further unpack what teams are really up against it to the degree we think that Florida is.

Florida, Oklahoma enter 2025 college season with the hardest schedules

When you look at strength of schedule, you have to view it as a double-edged sword. Navigating it will serve a team in its playoff push, as they will be given the benefit of the doubt if a loss pops up in a difficult slate. Again, strength of schedule is a constantly evolving metric because teams often overperform and underperform expectations. This is why you have to watch and play all the games.

While I do not expect Oklahoma to do much, I would say that having the hardest schedule in the country once again hurts Florida. I think this team will be improved from a year ago, but I question if they are ready for the onslaught that is about to him the relentlessly once again. As far as who benefits the most from it is the SEC, it has to be Ole Miss with the league's third easiest schedule.

Over in the Big Ten, this is bad news for Luke Fickell's Wisconsin Badgers, who have the hardest schedule in that league by far. They have the fourth hardest schedule in the country. The second hardest schedule in the Big Ten would be Rutgers, who come in at No. 16 overall. As far as who benefits the most in the Big Ten, it has to be Illinois coming at No. 40 overall and No. 17 in the Big Ten.

To tie a bow on this, strength of schedule is not everything, but it is something. Having a relatively difficult schedule will help reloading teams like Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon and Texas get back on top quicker. On the other side of the coin, having relatively soft schedules work heavily in the favor of contending teams like Tennessee, as well as opening a door to contention for teams like Ole Miss.

I am certain Cody Williams and I will talk about this extensively on Monday's episode of False Start.