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PFF says Wisconsin Badgers have hardest football schedule in FBS, projecting 5 wins

PFF's data has the Wisconsin Badgers with the most difficult schedule in college football, leading the company to project five wins for Luke Fickell in 2025.
Lorin Cox|
Nov 29, 2024; Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Wisconsin Badgers head coach Luke Fickell looks on from the sidelines during the second quarter against the Minnesota Golden Gophers at Camp Randall Stadium.
Nov 29, 2024; Madison, Wisconsin, USA; Wisconsin Badgers head coach Luke Fickell looks on from the sidelines during the second quarter against the Minnesota Golden Gophers at Camp Randall Stadium. | Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

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Wisconsin Badgers

The Wisconsin Badgers don't just have a tough football schedule this season. They have the toughest schedule.

That's what the data over at PFF says. The company unveiled its data-driven power rankings of 131 college football teams, and no team has a harder schedule than Wisconsin.

Fellow Big Ten teams UCLA (No. 2) and Rutgers (No. 5) also land in the Top 5 most difficult schedules this season.

PFF projects the Badgers to win just five games this season, with only a 41 percent chance to make a bowl game.

It has an almost identical projection for Michigan State, with the same number of projected wins and bowl game probability.

The only Big Ten teams with lower odds for a bowl game are Purdue (38 percent) and Northwestern (33 percent).

Overall, it leaves Wisconsin at No. 54 in PFF's market-implied power rankings entering 2025, good for 13th in the conference.

That's mostly a reflection of that strength of schedule, with the Badgers playing against four of their Top 12 teams. Ohio State is No. 1 and Oregon is No. 2.

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Lorin Cox
LORIN COX

Lorin Cox is the managing editor of Wisconsin Badgers on SI. He has been covering Badgers sports since 2014, when he was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin. He previously wrote for the Wisconsin State Journal, NBC Sports Chicago and USA Today Sports Media Group, and he is a former analyst for Pro Football Focus.