2009 Most Competitive Schedules

Here are Atomic Football's estimates of who plays the most competitive schedules in the country across all divisions. Not the toughest schedules, but the schedules where the opponents are most well-matched (i.e., the most parity). Another way to look at it is... which teams have the most unpredictable, and perhaps most exciting, games on their schedules?

Not surprisingly, 12 of the 13 most competitive schedules in the FBS come out of the MAC and ACC. Here are the top 6...

#1 Bowling Green

#2 Virginia

#3 Wake Forest

#4 Georgia Tech

#5 Toledo

#6 Ohio U.

The most competitive schedule outside the MAC and ACC? Purdue at #9 on the list.

Here's what we have on the other divisions. You'll note that the teams tend to cluster into one or two conferences. After all, within a conference, parity for one tends to mean parity for all...

FCS:

#1 Princeton

#2 Brown

#3 Columbia

#4 Tennessee State

#5 Cornell NY

#6 Austin Peay

D2:

#1 Ferris State

#2 Fairmont State

#3 West Virginia State

#4 Lane

#5 Charleston WV

#6 SE Oklahoma State

D3:

#1 Randolph Macon

#2 Lycoming

#3 Wilkes

#4 Bridgewater VA

#5 Gustavus Adolphus

#6 Franklin & Marshall

NAIA:

#1 Eastern Oregon

#2 Montana St-Northern

#3 Montana-Western

#4 Montana Tech

#5 Rocky Mountain

#6 Valley City State

If I get a chance, I'll try to add "least competitive schedules" to this post.