Who Really Had the Nation's Toughest Schedule?
From the moment the 2021 Arkansas Razorback football schedule was released, everyone from the sharp cliffs of Bella Vista to the flat cotton fields of Eudora espoused its virtue as the toughest schedule in all of college football, head football coach Sam Pittman included.
However, tough schedules aren't evaluated before the season during the time where fictional narratives such as the annual "Texas is Back!" dominate the thoughts of prognosticators.
Instead, the true measure of a schedule comes after the games have been played.
Well, with the exception of Alabama and Georgia, they all have, so we went ahead and crunched the numbers of the teams that were projected to have the Top 5 most difficult schedules when the season began.
The original rankings were:
1. Arkansas
2. Auburn
3. Texas
4. Georgia Tech
5. Kansas
The schedules were measured using two separate ranking methods.
The first is rather straight-forward. Add up total wins by opponents, then add up total losses by opponents. Determine an average record and win percentage, and whichever team has the highest win percentage gets crowned as having the toughest schedule.
This method results in the following:
| TEAM | TOTAL WINS/LOSSES | AVERAGE WIN/LOSS | WIN PCT. |
|---|---|---|---|
Georgia Tech | 99-56 | 8.3-4.7 | 63.8% |
Texas | 96-60 | 8.0-4.0 | 61.5% |
Auburn | 102-63 | 7.9-5.0 | 61.3% |
Kansas | 94-60 | 7.2-4.6 | 61.0% |
Arkansas | 90-75 | 6.9-5.8 | 54.5% |
Unfortunately for the Hogs, the claim to the nation's toughest schedule no longer holds up. However, part of that is their own fault, which is something Hog fans probably won't be too upset about.
Instead of following the form of the last three years with 2-3 wins, Arkansas added strength to Texas and Auburn's schedule with an unexpected 9-win season.
While the Hogs increased the Longhorns' strength of schedule, Texas didn't return the favor.
The Horns were supposed to anchor the Razorback non-conference schedule. Instead, they locked Arkansas into the weakest non-conference regular season schedule of the five teams, and it wasn't close.
The combination of Texas, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Georgia Southern and Rice yielded a 14-33 record and a 29.8% win percentage.
Compare that to Georgia Tech's non-conference regular season schedule of Georgia, Notre Dame, Kennesaw St. and Northern Illinois, and it's easy to see the disparity. That combination has a 44-10 record with an 81.5% win percentage.
Normally, Arkansas could still make up for a weak non-conference with the strength of the SEC. With Alabama, Georgia and Ole Miss providing a boost, it seemed possible. However, weaker than usual performances by Texas A&M, LSU and Auburn, part of which is the Razorbacks' fault, dampened traditionally high numbers.
The other part of the equation was an unexpectedly high amount of success in the Big 12. Kansas benefits from a 12-2 Baylor, 12-2 Oklahoma, and 12-2 Oklahoma State, while adding an 11-2 Coastal Carolina on the non-conference side.
Texas benefits from the same Big 12 success. The Longhorns then rack up another 20 wins from 11-2 Louisiana and 9-4 Arkansas.
The end result is Georgia Tech rather handily claiming the nation's toughest schedule, while Arkansas compiles numbers that suggest it would no longer be in the Top 5 if we expanded the field.
But raw numbers aren't a key indicator of schedule toughness. Eight wins for a Power 5 team doesn't hold as much weight as the same number of wins for a Sun Belt or SWAC team.
So let's break it down using a different formula.
This approach will break down each team according to perceived value of each win. Points will be awarded as follows:
Top 10 team - 6 pts.
Top 25 team - 5 pts.
Power 5 (winning record ) - 4 pts.
Group of 5 (double-digit wins) - 4 pts.
Group of 5 (winning record) - 3 pts.
Power 5 (non-winning record) - 2 pts.
Group of 5 (non-winning record) - 1 pt.
Because not all teams played the same amount of games, we took the total and divided it by the number of teams played to come up with a seasonal average point value per opponent. After crunching the numbers, here are the results:
| TEAM | AVG. OPPONENT VALUE |
|---|---|
Texas | 3.83 |
Auburn | 3.69 |
Kansas | 3.67 |
Georgia Tech | 3.5 |
Arkansas | 3.0 |
Texas vaults to the top on the added value of Arkansas finishing in the Top 25 while do severe damage to the Hogs' average opponent score with the Longhorns' losing record.
Auburn gets the Arkansas bounce also, moving up to the third toughest schedule.
Georgia Tech falls to fourth with adjustments made to account for the fact that 20 of its opponents' wins came from Kennesaw St. and Northern Illinois.
Despite the change in order, there is one clear constant.
No matter how it's figured, Arkansas is a distant fifth when reevaluating the schedules deemed the five toughest when the season started.
However, as Razorback coach Sam Pittman sits on his throne for photos surrounded by the five trophies his team collected, it seems a given that he will gladly give up the title of nation's toughest schedule knowing he can tell recruits that Arkansas is a big reason why Texas walked away with the claim at season's end.
