Ad Disclosure
For SEC East teams, there’s nothing quite like having Alabama come up as the rotating SEC West opponent in terms of strength of schedule.
ESPN’s Football Power Index, the World Wide Leader’s “measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of the season” has given preseason rankings to all 130 FBS teams. Those rankings also provide strength of schedule rankings. Based on the FPI’s preseason rankings, South Carolina has the toughest schedule in the country in 2019. All 14 SEC teams rank in the top 35 (top 33 to be exact). Two teams make the top 5 and five teams make the top 10.
Will Muschamp’s Gamecocks will host Alabama on Sept. 14, Week 3 of the 2019 season. South Carolina annually closes the season with Clemson, the defending national champion. Ahead of the Clemson game is a trip to College Station to take on Texas A&M. Speaking of the Aggies, like South Carolina, they also face both Alabama and Clemson in the regular season, but they’re not the No. 2 SEC team in terms of strength of schedule. Interestingly enough, the Aggies have the sixth-toughest schedule in the conference.
Here’s how the FPI ranks the SEC schedules for 2019:
- South Carolina (No. 1 overall)
- Florida (No. 4)
- Georgia (No. 6)
- Auburn (No. 7)
- LSU (No. 10)
- Texas A&M (No. 11)
- Vanderbilt (No. 14)
- Tennessee (No. 16)
- Ole Miss (No. 18)
- Mississippi State (No. 19)
- Alabama (No. 21)
- Arkansas (No. 23)
- Missouri (No. 31)
- Kentucky (No. 33)
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.