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.

2009 Undefeated Regular Season Predictions

Something else a little different... Who is good enough, and whose schedule is favorable enough, to go undefeated during the 2009 regular season? Here goes...

FBS: Expect one undefeated. Florida has about a 48% chance. Oklahoma about a 13% chance. USC, Texas, Penn State, and Boise each have between a 5 and 7% chance. TCU, Ole Miss, Ohio State, Iowa, Alabama, Cal, and Pitt fall in the range of 1 to 4% chance.

FCS: Odds are that no one in the FCS will go undefeated. The best chance goes to Montana (6%) followed by Dayton (3%), Richmond (3%), and James Madison (3%). App State and Harvard each have a 2% chance. A host of others are at 1%.

D2: Expect two undefeated teams. Chances are as follows: Minn-Duluth (43%), UNA (22%), Abilene Christian (20%), NW Missouri State (16%), Grand Valley (15%), Indiana PA (10%). About 20 others fall between 1 and 5%.

D3: Expect at least three undefeated teams... Mount Union (73%), UW-Whitewater (38%), Mary Hardin-Baylor (27%), Monmouth IL (23%), Wash & Jeff (19%), Millsaps (17%), Wabash (13%), Case Western (11%), and several others between 5 and 8% (Wheaton, Franklin, Wesley, Redlands, Muhlenberg, Willamette, and Wartburg).

NAIA: Expect one and possibly two undefeated teams... Saint Francis IN (31%), Morningside (21%), Carroll MT (14%), Lindenwood (14%), Friends (14%). The rest are all less than 8%.

One caveat... beyond the FBS, I cannot account for returning starters for the other divisions. So, for these divisions, the above is basically projecting last year's teams into this year's schedules. The numbers I post to the team pages (http://www.atomicfootball.com/af-team-links.html) from which these projections come will be updated as the season progresses. Expect the biggest changes after week one when this year's performance first begins to get factored in.

2009 Projected FBS Conference Winners

I don't do these kinds of predictions very often, and, when I do, they're a little rougher than my game predictions. However, I thought it would be fun to project out to the end of the season, accounting for schedules and home field advantage, to make an educated "computer guess" as to who are likely winners of their conferences. Keep in mind that computer predictions are less prone to "speculate" on big year-to-year swings, so don't be surprised if things are not substantially different from last year. One key factor to note: Home field advantage makes its biggest difference against a well-matched opponent. It has little affect on mismatches. So, teams contending for their conference championship tend to be favored if they face their toughest challengers at home. With that, here goes...

ACC: There is little doubt that the ACC is among the most consistent of the BCS conferences. Maybe not a lot of top 10 teams, but LOTS of top 40 quality teams. In the Atlantic, Florida State should edge out an improved Clemson team by a win. Wake and BC are also contenders. In the Coastal, Virginia Tech should have an even bigger advantage over North Carolina. Georgia Tech could also challenge.

Big 12: In the North, the edge goes to Missouri, but not by much. Kansas will give them a run. I'll have to "wait and see" on Nebraska. In the much stronger South, the schedules seem to favor Oklahoma over Texas. Oklahoma State and Texas Tech will need to outperform to be in the running.

Big East: Pittsburgh looks to be the front-runner, with several teams on their heels: West Virginia, Rutgers, USF, a fading Cincinnati, and Connecticut. Not much I can add to this.

Big Ten: It looks like a dead heat between Penn State and Ohio State. It seems unlikely that both those teams would stumble and give an improving Iowa team an opening.

C-USA: In the East, the Pirates of East Carolina should be favored to repeat, but Southern Miss will make it tough on them. Look for the rest of the East to finish at or below 0.500 in the conference. In the West, I'd also give Tulsa a similar edge over Houston. Rice and UTEP will round out the top four.

MAC: Overall, the MAC could host the most exciting conference race in the country, with pretty consistent performers top to bottom. The East will be very tight with Temple, Buffalo, and Bowling Green leading the pack and Akron and Ohio U. on their tails. In the West, Central Michigan is favored to knock off reigning champ Ball State. Closely-matched Western Michigan, Northern Illinois, and an improved Toledo will fill the next three slots behind the Chippewas and Cards.

MWC: TCU's Horned Frogs should win at least 6 conference games to take the title, but only if Utah and BYU let them. The rest of the group will watch from the sidelines.

Pac-10: USC is almost a lock -- almost. Cal or Oregon will need to overachieve to knock them off. Oregon State, Arizona, and Stanford should still finish at or above 0.500 in the conference. It doesn't look good for the rest of the "Pac."

SEC: In the East, Florida should coast to victory over a fading Georgia. The rest will do well to finish 0.500 in the conference. In the West, the scheduling favors a surging Ole Miss team slightly over Alabama. If not for Florida busting the curve, the West would easily be the stronger half of the conference.

Sun Belt: The Troy Trojans should have little trouble claiming the crown, trailed in the distance by a tight pack consisting of Arkansas State, an experienced MTSU team, Floridas Int'l and Atlantic, and a sliding La-Lafayette.

WAC: Boise. Period. OK, not really. Nevada could make a run at the Broncos.

One last thing... I would love to do the other divisions, but #1, this is a hobby, it doesn't pay the bills, and my time is limited. #2, finding easily accessible info on returning starters, etc. is next to impossible for all but the FBS and FCS. If you're interested, I can send you the data I have and tell you how to crunch the numbers yourself. If you're savvy with Excel, it's not hard. That's the best I can do.