College Football: Ranking the 10 easiest FBS schedules in 2017

As every college football fan knows, not all schedules are created equal. Which teams will enjoy the easiest paths during the 2017 regular season?

In college football, every team plays either eight or nine conference games. Some conferences naturally provide a tougher test on an annual basis. After all, nobody would argue that a Sun Belt schedule is as challenging on aggregate as an SEC slate, or that MAC schedules are as difficult as conference play in the Big Ten. But even within conferences, not all schedules are created equal. And beyond league games, there is a wide disparity in how teams choose to fill their non-conference calendar.

Thus we have set out on an attempt to quantify these schedules. To do so, we have calculated the 2016 winning percentage of every FBS teams’ 2017 opponents. We have also awarded points for opponents who played in bowl games last year, and another point for opponents that reached six wins. (This allows partial credit for scheduling tougher FCS opponents as well as partial credit for teams such as North Texas that qualified to go bowling as a 5-7 team to fill empty bowl spots.)

Not surprisingly, all of the easiest schedules are played by teams in Group of Five conferences. Being part of a Power Five league provides a minimum baseline of schedule quality that isn’t guaranteed for mid-major programs. So click ahead to see which teams will have the easiest paths to reach bowl eligibility in 2017.