Dissecting CFN.com's Strength of Schedule Feature

Just did a couple of experiments here.

First, I plugged next years schedule into the formula to see what would happen. Now, most everyone would agree that next years football schedule is much easier than this years, but according to their formula, next years is much harder. This year: 47.32

Next year (assuming Arkansas State for TBA just because that's our easiest opponent for this year, don't want any arguments made on that front).

North Texas 77.5
Arizona State 46.25
Tennessee 17.25
@Miss State 84.25/2 = 42.125
@Vanderbilt 75.25/2 = 37.625
Florida 14.75
Auburn 15.5
Arkansas State 108.75
@Alabama 40.5/2 = 20.25
@Ole Miss 42.25/2 = 21.125
Arkansas 54
455.125 / 11 = 41.37

Now, let's look at this years schedule, but let's play Vandy, Miss State, Ark State, and Troy State on the Road, and play Georgia, Florida, Auburn, and Arkansas at home. Does anyone want to argue against the fact that this would be a MUCH easier schedule?? Didn't think so. Let's see what that does to the score.

Oregon State 30.5
@Arkansas State 108.75 / 2 = 54.375
Auburn 15.5
Georgia 3.25
@Miss State 84.25 / 2 = 37.625
Florida 14.75
@Troy State 95.25 / 2 = 47.625
@Vanderbilt 75.25 / 2 = 37.625
Alabama 40.5
Ole Miss 42.25
Arkansas 54.0
Total: 378 / 11 = 34.36

Now, how much sense does that make?

 

Weird thing about this, though, is the guy who wrote it (Pete Fiutak) is the VERY SAME GUY who is defending this flawed strength of schedule thing!

How can the SEC be so much "tougher" than the Pac-10, yet finish three spots below the Pac-10 in CFN's SoS rankings???

 

Huge mistake

The easiest way to significantly improve SOS according to this system is to change you easiest home game to a road game and your hardest road game to a home game.

Every single D1 team, according to this formula, will have a tougher SOS by switching their best opponent to home and their worst opponent to away.
I worked it out for a few teams, and most teams jump at least 10 spots in the SOS rankings, some more than 20 spots. A system that allows such a jump is severly flawed.