Ranking Strength of Schedule for fourth College Football Playoff Top 25 from weakest to strongest

The fourth edition of the College Football Playoff rankings debuted on Tuesday night, giving fans an idea how the postseason picture might play out. Of course, there’s still plenty to dissect and strength of schedule is a huge factor.

The top of the field has really taken an iron grip on things of late, with a handful of SEC schools leading the pack in that regard. Meanwhile, ACC teams continue to have some of the weaker schedules in the group.

On3 stops to take a look at each team in the College Football Playoff ranking in terms of strength of schedule according to the ESPN FPI. Here its each team’s strength of schedule, ranked from weakest to strongest, to this point.

Virginia – SOS: 84

CFP Top 25 Ranking: 18

Virginia’s bounced around in this metric a little bit in recent weeks, but the ACC’s overall body of work hasn’t helped prop up the schedules in the league very much. Virginia has wins over Florida State and Louisville, which are decent enough wins. Its only losses are also respectable ones to NC State and Wake Forest.

Games Remaining: Virginia Tech

Georgia Tech – SOS: 81

CFP Top 25 Ranking: 23

Georgia Tech has stumbled of late, dropping two of its last three and bringing its overall schedule more into focus. Things don’t stack up particularly well for the Yellow Jackets, who had previously been cruising toward an ACC title game berth. A win over Georgia, though, could change quite a bit.

Games Remaining: Georgia

Tulane – SOS: 73

CFP Top 25 Ranking: 24

Tulane is fighting for the spot as the highest-ranked Group of Six champion. Unfortunately its strength of schedule isn’t all that beefy. An early-season blowout loss to Ole Miss represented one of the few quality games on the schedule. Right now it’s just survive and advance for Tulane.

Games Remaining: Charlotte

SMU – SOS: 66

CFP Top 25 Ranking: 21

SMU has lost three close games and there are reasonable explanations for each. Still, it’ll feel like a season of ‘what could have been’ for the Mustangs. With a lone game remaining against California, there’s not a whole lot of firepower left to left the strength of schedule metric.

Games Remaining: California

Arizona – SOS: 63

CFP Top 25 Ranking: 25

Arizona suffered three losses in close succession in the middle of the season but has been hot ever since. The Wildcats have won four straight games now, including a ranked road win at Cincinnati. With another game coming up against a quality foe in Arizona State, the strength of schedule is likely to creep up a little more

Games Remaining: @ Arizona State

Pittsburgh – SOS: 61

CFP Top 25 Ranking: 22

The Panthers have gotten hot at the right time, winning six of their last seven games. The only loss in that span was to Notre Dame, which would have helped bump up the SOS a touch. Still, it wasn’t an overly difficult schedule and there were only two ranked wins on it.

Games Remaining: Miami

Texas Tech – SOS: 56

CFP Top 25 Ranking: 5

Texas Tech has only the one loss, a narrow, one-score game against Arizona State on the road. Other than that it’s been a spotless resume with big road wins over Utah and Houston and a home blowout of BYU. The Red Raiders are jockeying for potential bye positioning at this point.

Games Remaining: @ West Virginia

Utah – SOS: 55

CFP Top 25 Ranking: 13

Utah’s strength of schedule has held right around this level the past few weeks. It’s a decent schedule, but not one to really write home about. The two losses are both to good teams, plus there are some sneaky good wins in there. There’s one game left that probably won’t help or hurt much.

Games Remaining: @ Kansas

Ohio State – SOS: 52

CFP Top 25 Ranking: 1

Ohio State has absolutely walked through its schedule this season, which was lighter than expected for a few reasons. First, Penn State‘s fall-off really hurt the Buckeyes overall schedule strength. Second, there was no Oregon or Indiana on the slate this year.

Games Remaining: @ Michigan

Miami – SOS: 48

CFP Top 25 Ranking: 12

Miami’s strength of schedule has taken a considerable hit in recent weeks with some of the other losses around the league. A road win at Florida State has been considerably diminished, while the road loss at Louisville looks considerably worse than it did three weeks ago. The good news? Miami gets a boost in the finale.

Games Remaining: @ Pittsburgh

Remaining CFP teams’ strength of schedule

Arizona State | SOS: 39 | CFP Ranking: 20
Indiana | SOS: 38 | CFP Ranking: 2
Michigan | SOS: 37 | CFP Ranking: 15
Notre Dame | SOS: 34 | CFP Ranking: 9
Ole Miss | SOS: 33 | CFP Ranking: 7
Tennessee | SOS: 31 | CFP Ranking: 19
BYU | SOS: 28 | CFP Ranking: 11
Vanderbilt | SOS: 26 | CFP Ranking: 14
Oregon | SOS: 24 | CFP Ranking: 6
Texas A&M | SOS: 23 | CFP Ranking: 3
USC | SOS: 19 | CFP Ranking: 17
Georgia | SOS: 16 | CFP Ranking: 4
Texas | SOS: 10 | CFP Ranking: 16
Alabama | SOS: 9 | CFP Ranking: 10
Oklahoma | SOS: 5 | CFP Ranking: 8