SMQ: College Football Playoff hopefuls and strength of schedule

Veering near the median: Wisconsin, Alabama, and Oklahoma

Rounding out the list is one team that people might expect and two that have been touted by many as having the toughest schedules in the country. Wisconsin has taken plenty of deserved heat for playing in the Big Ten West, where they managed to avoid all of the top three teams from the East prior to their neutral-site showdown against Ohio State in Indianapolis next week.

But the Badgers are also the only undefeated Power Five team left in the equation, meaning they at least took care of business against the 50th-toughest schedule in the country. That is 31 spots higher than the schedule of UCF, the only other undefeated team in the FBS.

Wisconsin played C-USA East champion Florida Atlantic, bowl-bound Mountain West school Utah State, and disappointing and injury-prone BYU. That non-conference slate actually looks very similar to the one faced by Alabama. The Crimson Tide took on MWC West champion Fresno State, bowl-bound Mountain West school Colorado State, and disappointing and injury-prone Florida State. The Tide also played a fourth non-conference game against FCS Mercer.

Oklahoma is the interesting outlier in the group. The Sooners went 11-1 playing a schedule that included a tough road victory over Ohio State in Columbus. But Lincoln Riley’s team also faced 5-7 Tulane and 0-12 UTEP in its other two non-conference games. The Sooners weren’t helped by the fact that two Big 12 schools, Baylor and Kansas, each went 1-11 in 2017 play.

How should we rate this trio?

If Oklahoma wins over TCU in the Big 12 championship game, that victory over Ohio State will trump everything else that happened out of conference. It will also overcome the lone defeat on the Sooners’ record against 7-5 Iowa State.

If Wisconsin takes down Ohio State in Indianapolis, the Badgers will get into the College Football Playoff as the only unbeaten team in the Power Five. That still means something, even in an era when the selection committee is ostensibly looking at advanced metrics.

(It is still unclear which strength of schedule calculations the committee uses, as they often offer wildly divergent opinions on such matters and try to declare both “quality wins” and “quality losses” when offering public interpretations of their rankings.)

Now Alabama is another question. Because they lost to Auburn in the Iron Bowl, they have no shot at winning the SEC. But they also have only one loss, and that loss is better than any suffered by a College Football Playoff contender. Should the Sooners or the Badgers stumble in their respective conference championships, the Tide are probably the team that will swoop in and steal a second spot for the SEC.