{"id":77029,"date":"2025-07-20T03:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T03:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/77029\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T03:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T03:40:10","slug":"who-has-the-most-difficult-schedule-in-big-12-football-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/77029\/","title":{"rendered":"Who has the most difficult schedule in Big 12 football? \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not every schedule is created equal \u2014 even in the Big 12, where it seems parity is the key word to describe the annual football race.<\/p>\n

In 2025, though, who will have the toughest schedule in the league? <\/p>\n

The Deseret News took a deep dive look into this question, creating a formula to best try to come up with an answer that considers both nonconference and Big 12 play, along with national strength of schedule metrics.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Special Collector’s Issue: “1984: The Year BYU was Second to None”<\/p>\n

Get an inclusive look inside BYU Football’s 1984 National Championship season.<\/p>\n

This formula is based on three criteria:<\/p>\n

1. Where each team lands in national strength of schedule rankings:<\/b> ESPN Football Power Index\u2019s strength of schedule<\/a>, Pro Football Network strength of schedule<\/a> and Phil Steele\u2019s toughest schedule rankings were used for this exercise. <\/p>\n

Each team\u2019s average strength of schedule is then calculated and arranged from 1 (hardest) to 16 (easiest) and given a corresponding point value.<\/p>\n

2. Ranking each Big 12 team\u2019s nonconference schedules:<\/b> I compared the three-game nonleague schedule for every Big 12 team, ranking in order from 1 (hardest) to easiest (16), with heavy consideration given to facing power conference level opponents and whether the game(s) were on the road or at home.<\/p>\n

3. Ranking each Big 12 team\u2019s conference schedule:<\/b> Using my post-spring Big 12 power rankings<\/a> as a guide (and factoring a significant drop for BYU with the loss of Jake Retzlaff), I ranked each team\u2019s Big 12 schedule from 1 (hardest) to 16 (easiest) in terms of difficulty. <\/p>\n

Among the factors used to make these rankings were difficulty of opponents, how many of those most difficult games came at home vs. on the road and consecutive games against the Big 12\u2019s toughest projected teams.<\/p>\n

I then added the point value up for each criteria to come up with the rankings. The lowest total scores equaled the toughest schedules, while highest scores were the more favorable schedules.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean teams at the top won\u2019t be in the Big 12 race, or that teams at the bottom have a sure path to the league title. It just helps to determine how their schedule \u2014 and its difficulty \u2014 may factor in to the challenges the team faces during the 12-game 2025 season.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it all shook out.<\/p>\n

No. 1: Utah Utes<\/p>\n