As November nears, two non-BCS teams remain undefeated. Both Texas Christian and Boise State have spotless records and continue to vie for a BCS bowl berth. With TCU passing Boise State in the BCS rankings, the issue of schedule has come into discussion. How do these team’s schedules fare against each other and past BCS-busters?
For sake of comparison, each team’s opponents’ wins and losses were added to determine an opponent’s winning percentage. Only the regular season was accounted for and FCS team’s records were thrown out. For this year’s Texas Christian and Boise State squads future opponents were included as well.
So who played the toughest schedule? The 2006 Boise State Broncos’ opponents cumulative record was 68-72 for a .486 winning percentage. The Broncos edged out the 2008 Utah Utes, whose opponents finished with a record of 66-71 for a winning percentage of .482. This season, Texas Christian’s past and future opponents have a .481 winning percentage (39-42 record).
The 2004 and 2008 Utah Utes played multiple BCS opponents in their BCS-busting seasons. In 2004, the Utes knocked off Texas A&M, Arizona and North Carolina. Last year, Utah beat Michigan and Oregon State. Texas Christian has already defeated Clemson and Virginia this season.
The 2007 Hawaii team’s opponents had the worst cumulative winning percent of .384 (48-77). The Warriors only regular season game against a BCS team was versus Washington.
Despite three BCS foes in 2004, Utah Utes opponents had a .424 (53-72) winning percentage. Currently, Boise State’s opponents have a .437 (38-49) winning percentage.
Arguments could be made that Utah’s schedule in 2008 was the toughest. The Utes opened the season at Ann Arbor to play Michigan and also beat an Oregon State team that won nine games and upset USC. The Utes also beat ranked conference foes, TCU and BYU. The 2006 Boise State’s best regular-season wins were over Hawaii, who finished 11-3, and Oregon State, who ended the season ranked 21st in the AP poll with a 10-4 record.
This year the computers are favoring TCU because of its opponents, and the Horned Frogs still have 6-1 Utah to play. Boise State will have to hope that Oregon keeps winning and future opponents Nevada and Idaho enter their games with the Broncos with sterling records–or the Broncos may be out of luck in gaining the second BCS berth.
