College football is all about inequality. Teams don’t have equal resources, and conferences don’t have equal reputations. Parsing those differences is one of the most beloved aspects of the sport.
Strength of schedule is one place that college football fans have honed in on as being distinctively uneven from team to team.
Some teams will win 10 games without accomplishing much. Others will need a herculean struggle to get to six wins against a real gauntlet of opponents.
Every year, outlets will create a compilation ranking all 138 FBS teams’ schedule strength. That’s helpful context when trying to decide how impressive an individual team’s strength of record is.
Below is the current Strength of Schedule (SOS) rankings as compiled by ESPN at the start of the year.
As you might imagine, the list is very heavy on the SEC at the top. You can decide whether that’s because an SEC schedule really is that much harder than what everyone else plays, or … you know, other reasons.
College Football Strength of Schedule Rankings (2026)
| Strength of Schedule Rating | Team |
| 1 | Arkansas |
| 2 | Oklahoma |
| 3 | Texas |
| 4 | Kentucky |
| 5 | Ole Miss |
| 6 | Mississippi State |
| 7 | Florida |
| 8 | Ohio State |
| 9 | Texas A&M |
| 10 | South Carolina |
| 11 | LSU |
| 12 | Missouri |
| 13 | Auburn |
| 14 | Tennessee |
| 15 | Alabama |
| 16 | Michigan |
| 17 | Northwestern |
| 18 | Vanderbilt |
| 19 | USC |
| 20 | Georgia |
| 21 | Nebraska |
| 22 | Florida State |
| 23 | Purdue |
| 24 | Boston College |
| 25 | Washington |
| 26 | Oregon |
| 27 | Stanford |
| 28 | Michigan State |
| 29 | North Carolina |
| 30 | Arizona State |
| 31 | Maryland |
| 32 | Georgia Tech |
| 33 | Indiana |
| 34 | Minnesota |
| 35 | Clemson |
| 36 | UCLA |
| 37 | Illinois |
| 38 | Iowa |
| 39 | Rutgers |
| 40 | Wisconsin |
| 41 | Syracuse |
| 42 | Baylor |
| 43 | Virginia Tech |
| 44 | Oklahoma State |
| 45 | Miami (FL) |
| 46 | Duke |
| 47 | TCU |
| 48 | Colorado |
| 49 | Cincinnati |
| 50 | Wake Forest |
| 51 | SMU |
| 52 | West Virginia |
| 53 | Arizona |
| 54 | Pitt |
| 55 | BYU |
| 56 | Notre Dame |
| 57 | Iowa State |
| 58 | Louisville |
| 59 | Houston |
| 60 | Kansas State |
| 61 | Cal |
| 62 | Penn State |
| 63 | Utah |
| 64 | UCF |
| 65 | Virginia |
| 66 | NC State |
| 67 | Western Kentucky |
| 68 | Kansas State |
| 69 | Texas State |
| 70 | Kent State |
| 71 | Texas Tech |
| 72 | Oregon State |
| 73 | UTEP |
| 74 | Rice |
| 75 | Boise State |
| 76 | Washington State |
| 77 | Utah State |
| 78 | North Texas |
| 79 | UTSA |
| 80 | Missouri State |
| 81 | Ball State |
| 82 | Louisiana Tech |
| 83 | Navy |
| 84 | Fresno State |
| 85 | East Carolina |
| 86 | Charlotte |
| 87 | Central Michigan |
| 88 | Northern Illinois |
| 89 | Colorado State |
| 90 | Memphis |
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