We have an idea of what the current power balance in the Pac-12 conference is, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the records at the end of the 2022 season will reflect everyone’s perceived standing going into the year.
There is a reason that these teams play the games.
While we may think that Team A is better than Team B, there’s a good chance that Team B has an easier record than Team A, which may lead to them winning more games and having a better end to the season when all is said and done.
To try and see where a scenario like this may come into play, we broke down the strength of schedule for every school in the Pac-12 to look at their upcoming slate of games and determine which schools may have an easier path to success than others.
So how did we go about determining the strength of schedule for each team? Let’s break down the process. It started with getting a value for each team, and each opponent. To do this, we used the ESPN Football Power Index, where they rank each team in the FBS and assign them a number that “measures a team’s strength on a net point scale; expected point margin vs. average opponent on a neutral field.” Here is how the Pac-12 FPI numbers rank:
Utah (12.7)
Oregon (10.2)
UCLA (8.3)
USC (7.6)
Arizona State (6.5)
Washington (4.3)
Oregon State (2.0)
Stanford (0.9)
California (-1.1)
Washington State (-2.6)
Colorado (-4.3)
Arizona (-5)
From there, it was all about adding up the FPI for each team’s opponents, both in-conference and non-conference. The teams with the highest combined opponent FPI when all was said and done can be determined to have the hardest strength of schedule. It’s not rocket science.
While doing the legwork, there were a number of takeaways that we found. First of all, it’s clear that some of the less-talented teams in the conference — Colorado, Arizona, Stanford — have some of the hardest schedules. Another takeaway is that teams in the Pac-12 North ended up having a lot easier schedules…
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