This year should remind us that Strength of Schedule often comes down to luck.
As an example, let's look back at the B12 preseason media poll, where they actually finished, and the difference:
1 Utah 13 (-12)
2 KSU 8 (-6)
3 OSU 16 (-13)
4 Kansas 10 (-6)
5 Arizona 14 (-9)
6 Iowa State 2 (+4)
7 West Virginia 9 (-2)
8 UCF 15 (-7)
9 Tech 7 (+2)
10 TCU 6 (+4)
11 Colorado 4 (+7)
12 Baylor 5 (+7)
13 BYU 3 (+10)
14 Cincy 11 (+3)
15 Houston 12 (+3)
16 ASU 1 (+15)
The bottom eight teams in the preseason poll all finished better than expected, led by the Sun Devils.
Iowa State was the only team in the top 8 to finish better than expected. Wow.
Time will tell if this year was an outlier, or if the order will jumble each year.
Based on the preseason, ISU was to play 9 games with a total SOS (in order of projected finish) of 72. They ended up playing a schedule of 89, and avoided 1, 2, 4 and 6. So it goes.
Nationally, Iowa State SOS was 47th. TOE was 53, despite playing in the impossibly rugged Big 10.
Since 2000, TOE has had an average SOS of 38, while ISU has battled a SOS of 25. ISU also had 5 seasons in the Top 10 of SOS. TOE had one, back in 2000. Those numbers are part of the reason that one team has averaged 8 wins this century, and the other has averaged 5.7.
Here's hoping ISU can improve their percentages.
