Phil Steele’s 2015 college football spring prospectus is out, which provides more information than one human brain could ever hope to process. The first page offers a look at last year’s strength of schedule rankings, which are different than the NCAA’s. How are they different? Great question. Steele doesn’t exactly answer.
Still, his less than scientific schedule rating method meets the eye test, as he rates Arkansas at No. 1 overall. The Hogs not only faced the minefield that was the six other bowl teams in the SEC West - all of whom earned a Top 10 ranking at one point last season - plus Georgia and Missouri from the SEC East, MAC champion Northern Illinois, a better-than-expected UAB team, a worse-than-expected Texas Tech club, and then Nicholls State and Texas in the bowl game.
UCLA followed at No. 2 with its Pac-12 South slate plus Stanford, Cal and Washington from the North, Memphis, Texas and Virginia in non-conference and Kansas State in the Alamo Bowl.
How about the entire top 25?
1. Arkansas
2. UCLA
3. Auburn
4. Ole Miss
5. Colorado
6. Washington State
7. Tennessee
8. Utah
9. Texas A&M
10. Miami
11. USC
12. Kansas
13. Notre Dame
14. West Virginia
15. Arizona
16. Virginia
17. Texas
18. Stanford
19. Florida
20. California
21. LSU
22. Michigan
23. Syracuse
24. Iowa State
25. Rutgers