Strength of Schedule

While living in Utah just after the 2008 football schedule announcements, Utah fans got all over BYU fans for "dumbing down" their schedule. Coach Mendenhall is the reason for this ridicule as he said, under the current system, you are only rewarded for winning games so you might as well just schedule teams you know you can beat. So, now that the preseason Sagarin ratings are out, I thought I'd see how these ratings (which will most certainly change as the season advances) would compare BYU (#22), Utah (#30), TCU (#33), and New Mexico's (#61) schedules. I threw out the Sagarin ratings for the 5 common conference opponents and only compare the 4 non-conference games plus the 3 games against the MWC top four.

New Mexico's opponents average Sagarin rating is 54.7 (6 points better-only team whose opponents are better than themselves)
BYU's opponents average Sagarin rating is 62.3 (40 points worse)
Utah's opponents average Sagarin rating is 66.7 (37 points worse)
TCU's opponents average Sagarin rating is 73 (40 points worse)

New Mexico's non-conference opponents average Sagarin rating is 74.75 (14 points worse)
BYU's non-conference opponents average Sagarin rating is 78 (56 points worse)
Utah's non-conference opponents average Sagarin rating is 87.75 (58 points worse)
TCU's non-conference opponents average Sagarin rating is 99.5 (67 points worse)

Other notes:
New Mexico is the only one of the 4 not playing a I-AA opponent. However, they do play New Mexico State, who, if they were a I-AA team, would not make the top 25 I-AA teams. Their lead widens over BYU because, in conference, they don't get to play themselves, number 61 while the other 3 teams do.
TCU plays the highest rated opponent in Oklahoma at number 4. They also play the lowest rated opponent in Stephen F. Austin at 192. They went a little extreme.
Utah plays two teams below 120th (the current number of I-A teams-in fact, both these teams are in the bottom 100 in the ratings). But they play two non-conference opponents that rank in Sagarin's top 25, add BYU and they have 3 on the schedule.
BYU does not play anyone ranked in the top 25. However, that's because Utah didn't make the grade. Just kidding, kind of. Also, their I-AA opponent is the only of the I-A opponents in the top 100 (TCU's is 192 and Utah's is 170) and they are rated higher than 3 of BYU's other opponents (SDSU, UNLV, and Utah State-can we drop SDSU and add UNI to the MWC?).

New Mexico, who is the worst team, will have the hardest road (which is why they will finish 4th, maybe even 5th). TCU, who is the most athletic team, will have the easiest road (which is why they might finish as high as 2nd). BYU and Utah, who are the two best teams, have similar roads, except that BYU plays 2 of its 3 top 50 games on the road, and Utah plays 3 of their 4 top 50 games (including both BYU and TCU) at home. Also of note, Utah's schedule is top-heavy and bottom-light with 3 top-25 games and 2 bottom-100 teams; Utah's SECOND worst opponent (Utah State) is BYU's worst opponent (by a pretty long ways too). So if BYU "dumbed down" the schedule this year, they were just following Utah's lead. Even with their dumbed down schedule, it's still more difficult than Utah's.