College Football: Ranking the 10 easiest FBS schedules in 2017
By Zach Bigalke
Middle Tennessee won eight games last year, and they should be able to reach that plateau again thanks to one of the easiest schedules in college football. They open the year with three straight tests against Power Five competition. The season begins at home against Vanderbilt (6-7 in 2016), followed by road trips to Syracuse (4-8) and Minnesota (9-4). Call this Part 1 of the season.
Part 2 spans the two months between September 16 and November 18. Over that stretch, Middle Tennessee plays seven games against teams that all finished 2016 with four wins or fewer. It all begins with the last non-conference game against Bowling Green (4-8), and continues into a Conference USA stretch where the Blue Raiders avoid all four C-USA West teams that qualified for bowl games last year. Instead they had the fortune of drawing UAB, whose program returns after being shuttered for two seasons, and UTEP (4-8).
That leaves Part 3, when they finish the year with back-to-back games against the teams who finished ahead of them in C-USA East last year. First they play at defending C-USA champ Western Kentucky (11-3) on November 18 before hosting Old Dominion (10-3) on Thanksgiving weekend. They will need to beat both to have a shot at a conference title, but should have an otherwise unblemished conference record.