As we close in on the 2026-27 college football season, talks regarding each team’s outlook are continuously ramping up. Those include intense (though delayed) reactions to particularly easy/difficult schedules.
Now, we all know the ways in which teams’ strengths and circumstances are qualified, with rankings like SOS and FPI…but I don’t care about those.
Any other time, people get hung up on “eyeball test” when it comes to judging a squad and/or the adversity it endures, so I thought I’d do it for a change when I say the Northwestern Wildcats have the meanest slate in America this year. That’s right—not just in their state, not just in their conference, but in the entire friggin’ country. This is visible through a combination of three factors: the non-con., the league play, and the placement of the bye.
Getting the non-conference opposition squared away first, I must acknowledge that it doesn’t make for some unprecedented nightmare, but it could certainly be weaker, with two of the three names involved being South Dakota State and Colorado.
For context, the Jackrabbits are far from the flimsiest FCS team to duel, and even though the Buffaloes aren’t thriving right now, they’re still Power 4, so what kind of monster would I be to clown Northwestern for playing them? But I still stress that yes, the non-con. could have been much tougher than those two and Ball State. However, the same literally cannot be said for the Big Ten hand the Wildcats were dealt.
Of the nine B1G foes that stand in NW’s way, six finished 2025 with eight wins or more, including Indiana, Oregon and Ohio State—all playoff teams, two had first-round byes, and one went 16-0 to win it all. Oh, and the Cats face all of them on the road.
As for the other opps that made the “8+ win” category, they don’t exactly fly under the radar with rare success; Iowa has been one of the league’s most consistent forces in the 21st Century, Minnesota (also a road game) has established a reputation for its win streak in the postseason, and Illinois has turned heads by coming off of back-to-back years with bowl wins over the SEC.
Then there’s the three “easier” games, Penn State (winning team, proven head coach in Matt Campbell), at Michigan State (another squad with a proven first-year HC thanks to the hiring of Pat Fitzgerald…awkward), and Rutgers (okay I concede that hosting the Scarlet Knights isn’t so bad). So yeah, all in all, not the loveliest ride, but what really sends it into overdrive is the egregious placement of Northwestern’s sole bye.
Real quickly, just humor me here: where would you put the bye, with a schedule stacked like this one? Between Colorado and Indiana? Indiana and Penn State? Oregon and Iowa? Maybe Iowa and Ohio State? No.
Instead, the Wildcats have their bye between their first two games of the season, South Dakota State and CU. Heavens to Betsy, it’s bad enough you’re facing every winner to ever exist, but you’re also doing so with no breaks? What a gross mismanagement.
That means your notoriously modest Northwestern Wildcats will be enduring the following brigade without a single week of rest: Colorado, at Indiana, Penn State, Ball State, at Michigan State, Rutgers, at Oregon, Iowa, at Ohio State, at Minnesota, Illinois. Those last five are a death sentence on their own, yet the Cats are theoretically “supposed to” survive all 11? Better luck in 2027.
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