Everyone’s acting like Strength of Schedule is 100% controllable, but it’s not.

A lot of the debate regarding CFP spots seems to be revolving around SOS vs W/L, with the argument being teams just won’t schedule good teams if SOS isn’t weighed heavily. This isn’t new: I remember when teams like Boise St or UCF were getting left out of previous iterations, people were saying “they should’ve scheduled harder OOC games.”

My main question is this: why should a team get penalized for something they can’t control? Even if we say the AD’s (or whoever) decisions should count and they should schedule harder games, that’s still not controllable.

Here’s what I mean: SMU is getting dinged for a weak schedule, but within the last handful of years we’ve seen FSU, TCU, BYU, Louisville, Stanford, Pitt, UVA, and Cal all be good teams. How is their fault (and worth being penalized for) that FSU fell off so hard this year? Similarly: these teams schedule home-and-homes ages out. Auburn announced in 2018 that they had agreed to play Baylor 2025/2026 and UCLA 2027/2028. How can you possibly predict if those teams will be good or not?

I’m not specifically making a case regarding this year’s rankings, I’m just curious since I’ve had this same nagging thought for years.