S.O.S.

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I spend a majority of my down time (aka, workday) browsing sports websites and blogs for my own edification. In doing so, I have come across a great many haters out there. As is usually the case, the defending national champs, are the target of most of the bile spewn about on message boards. It just so happens that this team happens to be my Florida Gators. People get tired of all the coverage directed at UF and Tebow. I fully understand that. The Champs always get way more than their fair share of ESPN coverage. But one thing that gets tiresome is when people talk crap without knowing a damn thing. My beef: strength of schedule.

The talk this pre-season was that coming off of last year's grueling championship run, The Gators would coast through their relatively easy schedule to another BCS title. They pointed to the fact that they scheduled Charleston Southern, Troy, and FIU out of conference. Critics whined and complained that The Gators "never play anybody" and "should be embarrassed for scheduling those teams." I will not sit here and argue that the Gator's out of conference opponents are world beaters. In fact, they aren't even very good at all, but that isn't the point. You have to look at the strength of schedule as a whole. And in the last 10 years, nobody has had a played a more challenging schedule than the Gators have.

Strength of Schedule For the 10 Most Recent BCS National Champions (Sagarin Rankings)

For clarity's sake, here is a brief glossary:

The number next to the year is the schedule ranking on a scale of 1-119 (1 = most difficult, 119 = least difficult). "Top 25" is the number of seasons that team's schedule ranked among the 25 most difficult. "Top 10" is the number of seasons that team's schedule ranked among the 10 most difficult. "Title Year" is the team's schedule ranking the year they won the BCS Championship.

As you can plainly see, over the last ten years, Florida has played a tougher schedule than any of the other BCS Title winners. Moreover, when winning said BCS Titles, UF played navigated the toughest road there. I was a bit surprised and impressed by USC's schedule strength. The fact that they play tough games is probably a good indicator of why the Trojans usually perform well in big games. The same holds true for the Gators. Being challenged week in and week out teaches you how to take a punch and not lose your composure.

So far this season, The Gators have played the 39th ranked schedule. With a match-up against #2 Alabama (27 SOS) on the horizon, the SOS will certainly go up for both teams. #3 Texas (49 SOS) is in the fortunate position of playing the Big 12 "Title Game" against a 3-loss Nebreaska team that boasts an offense that is anemic at best. Nothing like cake walking into the championship game. Ohio State was allowed to do that in '06 and '07, and look how it worked out for them. In case you forgot, OSU got pasted by UF and LSU; 41-14, and 38-24 respectively.

[Off topic, but interesting nonetheless- when looking up the final score of the '07 BCS Championship game (which was not as close as the score indicated as OSU scored garbage points at the end), I stumbled across Ohio State's all-time bowl record. They have never beaten an SEC team in a bowl game, going 0-8 against 7 different teams. I'm just saying.]

With all the hate thrown the way of the Gators this year, it is worth pointing out that if they are to win a second consecutive title, they will have to knock off two undefeated #2 teams in back-to-back games. That is as tough a task as any. If anyone can do it, the Gators can. Less than 365 days ago, they were preparing for the first of 2 consecutive games against the #1 team in the nation. "But to me, it seems quite clear. That it's all just a little bit of history repeating."