The BCS standings are a well-conceived blend of objective (computers) and subjective (polls) measures of teams’ on-field success, and the BCS ensures a national title matchup while preserving—and even accentuating—the week-to-week drama of the most meaningful regular season in all of sports.  But to find college football’s most accurate strength of schedule (S.O.S.) ratings, don’t look to the BCS; look to the Anderson & Hester/Seattle Times Rankings.

The BCS S.O.S. ratings say that Florida, Florida State, and Miami have played the 3 toughest schedules in the country.  But, in truth, the 3 toughest schedules have been played by Stanford, UCLA, and Colorado.  Florida, Florida State, and Miami, have played only the 19th, 14th, and 13th-toughest schedules in the country, respectively. 

Compare the relative difficulties of the BCS’s #1-ranked 11-game schedule (Miami’s) and the Anderson & Hester/Seattle Times Rankings’ #1-ranked 11-game schedule (Stanford’s), using the BCS’s own rankings of teams from #1-115 (as unofficially compiled by BCS expert Jerry Palm):
 
 

	Miami			Stanford
BCS rank	Opponent		BCS rank	Opponent
2	Florida State		4	Washington
4	Washington		6	Oregon State
5	Virginia Tech		11	Notre Dame
39	Pittsburgh		12	Texas
41	Syracuse		37	UCLA
44	West Virginia		40	Arizona State
51	Boston College		43	Arizona
79	Temple		53	USC
91	Rutgers		62	Washington St.
104	Louisiana Tech		63	Cal
1-AA	McNeese St.		68	San Jose State
Avg:  #46*			Avg:  #36
*This is the average ranking of Miami's 10 Division 1-A opponents.  If McNeese St. were rated as the #116 team, then Miami's average would rise to #52.

Stanford's average opponent is ranked #36 by the BCS; Miami's average opponent is ranked #46—and this is without considering Miami's game against 1-AA McNeese State.  The results of this comparison should not be surprising to most college football fans—particularly to Big Ten and Pac-10 fans, who have long maintained that teams in those conferences are not granted the luxury of de facto weeks off against bad teams.  According to the BCS rankings, Miami has played 4 opponents that were easier than Stanford’s easiest one, meaning that more than 1/3 of Miami’s games have been against easier teams than Stanford saw all season. 

The Anderson & Hester/Seattle Times S.O.S. ratings are far more consistent with the BCS’s own rankings than the BCS S.O.S. ratings are.  The BCS rankings support the Anderson & Hester/Seattle Times Rankings’ claim that Stanford (average opponent:  #36), UCLA (average opponent:  #35), and Colorado (average opponent:  #35) have each played tougher schedules than Florida (average opponent:  #43), Florida State (average opponent:  #42), and Miami (average opponent:  #46).  The BCS rankings also support the Anderson & Hester/Seattle Times Rankings’ claim that Washington (average opponent:  #40) has played the toughest schedule of any 1-loss team. 

So why are the Anderson & Hester/Seattle Times S.O.S. ratings able to be more accurate?  The most overarching reason is that the Anderson & Hester/Seattle Times Rankings feature the only S.O.S. ratings that directly take into account teams’ conference strength—and it is essential to take this into account.  Most teams play 8 of their 11 games versus teams in their own conference.  Therefore, on paper, for more than 70% of the season the Mid-American Conference's teams (51-51 won-lost record in conference games) look to be as strong as the Big 12's teams (49-49).  Every conference, no matter how weak or how strong, posts a collective .500 winning percentage in conference games.  Therefore, unless every team’s performance in conference play is adjusted to reflect its conference’s actual strength, unless a 4-4 won-lost record in the Big 12 is recognized as being profoundly more impressive than a 4-4 won-lost record in the MAC, then S.O.S. ratings will underrate the schedules of teams from good conferences.  Only the Anderson & Hester/Seattle Times Rankings avoid this potential pitfall. 

Additionally, the Anderson & Hester/Seattle Times S.O.S. ratings are more accurate than the BCS's because of two shortcomings in the BCS S.O.S. ratings that are readily apparent, and easily fixable.  First, the BCS takes out opponents’ wins or losses in games played against the team in question.  For example, both Nebraska and Oklahoma played 10-3 Kansas State, but the BCS takes out Kansas State’s results against those teams when evaluating their schedules.  Therefore, since Kansas State beat Nebraska, and since that win is taken out, the BCS counts Kansas State as a 9-3 team when evaluating Nebraska’s schedule.  And, since Kansas State lost twice to Oklahoma, and since those two losses are taken out, the BCS counts Kansas State as a 10-1 team when evaluating Oklahoma’s schedule.  Yet it is the same Kansas State team.  To give another example, in terms of opponents’ won-lost records, the BCS S.O.S. ratings give Florida exactly the same amount of credit for having played 9-3 Auburn as they give UCLA for having played 10-1 Washington.  Both Florida and UCLA receive credit for having played a 9-1 team.  To give one further example, in terms of opponents’ won-lost records, the BCS S.O.S. ratings actually give Florida more credit for twice having played 20th-ranked Auburn than Auburn gets for twice having played 7th-ranked Florida—because Auburn’s losses, and Florida’s wins, in those games are dropped, leaving Auburn with a better remaining won-lost record than Florida.  In short, the BCS S.O.S. ratings could easily be improved by not dropping opponents’ results against the team in question (and by including the won-lost record of the team in question in the opponents’ opponents’ won-lost tally).

Second, the BCS undervalues the importance of opponents’ opponents’ won-lost records.  According to published reports, the BCS’s original plan was to count a team’s opponents’ won-lost records and its opponents’ opponents’ won-lost records equally—each would have accounted for 50% of a team’s S.O.S. rating.  But this was changed to a 2/3-1/3 split because of concern that teams can only affect who they play, not who their opponents play.  But this concern is beside the point.  If one were truly to follow that argument, then opponents’ opponents’ won-lost records should not be included at all.  But the reason for reviewing opponents’ opponents’ won-lost records is that, without looking at who teams play, their won-lost records don’t tell you much.  Opponents’ opponents’ won-lost records need to be fully incorporated in order to evaluate the strength of a team’s opponents—to evaluate how good a team’s opponents actually are. 

The BCS should count opponents’ won-lost records and opponents’ opponents’ won-lost records equally, as it originally intended to do.  An example demonstrates why.  If, say, Alabama were to go 5-5 versus teams that usually win 70% of the time, then that would be no more or less impressive than if the Crimson Tide were to have gone 7-3 versus teams that usually win 50% of the time—in either case, Alabama would have been playing at a .700-winning-percentage level.  Thus, if a team’s opponents have posted .500 winning percentages against teams that in turn have posted .700 winning percentages, then that team’s schedule would be equally as difficult as one in which a team’s opponents had posted .700 winning percentages against teams that in turn had posted .500 winning percentages.  These would be identical schedules in terms of difficulty, yet the BCS would currently not regard them as such.  A 50-50 weighing of opponents’ and opponents’ opponents’ won-lost records would result in each of these schedules being given a rating of .600; but the BCS’s 2/3-1/3 emphasis would result in the former schedule being given a rating of .567 and the latter being given a rating of .633—a big difference.  The BCS S.O.S. ratings’ over-emphasizing of opponents’ won-lost records without sufficiently taking into account who those teams have been playing in amassing their won-lost records has the indirect effect, more often than not, of further underrating the schedules of teams from good conferences.  But, again, this could very easily be fixed.

For all of these reasons, the Anderson & Hester/Seattle Times S.O.S. ratings are the most accurate S.O.S. ratings available.  Only in these ratings are the schedules of teams from across the country, from across all conferences, evaluated with maximum accuracy.