The Football Outsiders guys have their own way of measuring strength of schedule.
Strength of Schedule (SOS) ratings are based on the final FEI ratings for each season, though they do not represent the average strength of a team’s schedule of opponents. Instead, they are uniquely designed to measure the difficulty of a schedule from the top down, with more significance given to the toughest opponents faced. The SOS ratings below represent the percent likelihood that an elite team (two standard deviations better than average) would go undefeated against the given team’s entire schedule. Win likelihoods are influenced by home/away/neutral game location and postseason games are included.
So what do you get when you go back and apply that metric to the last nine seasons of college football? You get eight of the top ten toughest schedules on average over that period being played by SEC teams. So just smile the next time somebody mentions that home game against Coastal Carolina.
Oh yeah, Boise State pops up at #97 on Bill’s list. That’s only 65 slots south of Vanderbilt.
Get The Picture 
That’s Brian’s site, not Bill’s. Bill’s is Football Study Hall.
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Try clicking on the second link in my post.
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The more I read about 2003, the more I am astounded at the coaching job Richt did to get UGA into the SEC Championship game. Only 2 reasonably close losses to the eventual national champ… one at their place, one at a neutral site.
By the way, 2003 USC can choke on their “half” of the championship.
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I’ve said all along that I think ’03 was by far Richt’s best coaching job.
When Gibson got hurt in the middle of the season, that offense was running on fumes.
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I wouldn’t call the SECCG loss a close one. The score was very close to the score in the 2005 game, and I felt like we bitch slapped them in 2005. Both games were over by middle of the third quarter when the winner took a 3 TD lead.
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Sure, the team was thoroughly beaten that day, but I thought Georgia had a really good chance to win… right up until Lumpkin (was it Lumpkin?) dropped a sure TD pass over the middle. At that point, it all becomes a foggy, tiger rag-induced memory blockage. LSU won handily in that game, but, still. Losing 17-10 at their place, when Billy missed three field goals… despite having an offensive line consisting of Big Max, three popsicle sticks wrapped in duct tape, and two spare tires without any tread.
If UGA won that game, LSU doesn’t make the SECCG… Eli Manning-led Ole Miss does… who I think Georgia matched up against much better.
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Greene also fumbled one inside the 10 (the 5, even?) in the first half of the Baton Rouge game, and I’m too lazy to confirm at the moment but I’m pretty sure there was another near-sure-TD-thing that we turned into 0. We could have been up 21-7, 24-7, something like that, going into halftime of that game. Easily.
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I guess this vindicates McGarity’s scheduling choices/decisions.
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Apologies for the threadjack, but it looks like we could be hours away from “Georgia Tech: Repeat Violator”
http://blogs.ajc.com/georgia-tech-sports/2011/07/14/significant-announcement-expected-at-georgia-tech/
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I’ve just posted on this.
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Do those tables say that South Carolina’s schedule last year is the single toughest yearly schedule since 2003?
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Yes. Played FEI #1 Auburn twice, #3 Alabama, #7 Arkansas, #18 FSU.
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Kinda bizarre to see Florida have a higher average SOS with their OOC schedule they have every year!
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