The Myth of Notre Dame's "Easy" Schedule

For the past five years, I've called Chicago home.  As a new resident of Chicago quickly finds out, Chicago can definitely double as the center of "Big Ten Country."  Whether you're cruising along Clark St. by Wrigley or heading down Lincoln Ave. by DePaul you'd be hard-pressed to go more than 20 feet without seeing a bar sporting some Big Ten school's flag outside its front doors.  Chicago also has more than its fair share of "Notre Dame bars" in its northside neighborhoods as well.  Thus, while there are certainly strong intra-conference rivalries it seems that every Big Ten school has plenty of venom left over to direct Notre Dame's way.

The thing that irks me the most is the constant complaining people do about the Notre Dame football team's strength of schedule.  Everybody, and I mean everybody, loves to point out Notre Dame's willingness to play all three service academies every year.  How we stick teams from the Big East on the schedule and how USC is our only tough game of the season.  I can only laugh at people who claim that if ND belonged to a conference we'd have a losing record every season.

First off, our only guaranteed annual game against any service academies is the one with Navy.  Yes, there are years when Army and Air Force sneak on there but all three in one season, every season?  2006 - that's the last time all three showed up on our schedule.  Not too long ago, right?  How about 1995 - the previous time ND played all three.  And the time before that?  Yeah, 1985.  So let's tone that speak down a little bit.

As for our games against the perennial weak Big East.  While its hard to argue against, people have to realize that we share a conference with them in nearly every other sport.  It's kind of like Michigan scheduling "Directional U", Penn St. gearing up to play Temple or Ohio State clearing room on their schedule for the might Penguins from Youngstown St. - a division I-AA school, by the way.

And while we're on the subject of scheduling games against teams from the FCS.  Did you know that Notre Dame has never played a team from that division.  Moreover, up until 2008 it had only played against four schools not associated with an automatic BCS qualifying conference.  The four schools?  Well, we've already talked about three of them and BYU - a school that also shares a religious affiliation.  Since 2008 SDSU ('08), Nevada ('09), and Utah ('10) have been added to that list.

USC is our only tough game, right?  Hey Big Ten, we play three of your schools every year!  Michigan, Michigan State, and Purdue are annual rivals.  Not only that, because of Big Ten conference scheduling rules we have to typically open our season by playing all three of them in September.  We don't get to line up the "Little Sisters of the Poor" as Ohio State's president Gordon Gee so aptly referred to a week ago.

So ole Gordo' got me thinking - what do Big Ten strength of schedules look like?  I researched Jeff Sagarin's season ending rankings for every season this decade (2001 - 2010) and found some interesting stuff:

                               

Year	Big Ten	Notre Dame	Strongest	Team	Weakest	Team
2010	53	22	27	Minnesota	74	Indiana
2009	56	37	26	Minnesota	80	Northwestern
2008	58	50	41	MSU	83	Indiana
2007	60	24	37	Michigan	82	Indiana
2006	41	18	12	Michigan	82	Wisconsin
2005	15	14	2	OSU	39	Wisconsin
2004	49	5	22	Iowa	76	Illinois
2003	34	1	15	OSU	69	Minnesota
2002	35	14	6	Michigan	62	Minnesota
2001	31	14	3	PSU	60	Minnesota

 Couple things jump out at me in comparing ND versus the Big Ten: 

1. Notre Dame's SOS averaged 20th over the last decade and was stronger than any other Big Ten school in a single season four times - that's more than any other Big Ten school versus its peers in the same time period.  
2. Notre Dame's weakest schedule came in 2008 at #50 in the country.  From 2001 through 2010 Michigan had the strongest average SOS at #29.  Their weakest schedule peaked in 2009 at #72.
3. While 2005 clearly seems to be an anomaly, the Big Ten scheduling has gotten weaker when compared to the beginning of the decade.  The same could be said for Notre Dame but, with the exception of 2008, our schedule remains significantly stronger than the Big Ten average.
4. Against the Big Ten's "upper echelon", let's call them OSU, UM, PSU, Iowa, and Wisco, Notre Dame fairs well too.  Only Michigan can claim a SOS that is stronger than ND's more than two times - they did it five times.

I could probably continue to beat this table to death on both a conference wide comparison and a team-by-team comparison with Notre Dame but it seems pretty obvious that Notre Dame's schedule isn't as weak as everyone in Big Ten Country makes it out to be.  On the contrary, while it might not be the scheduling of the late 80s and early 90s, it's still one that ranks relatively high year in and year out.

So please, lay the argument down and come at me with something else!