College Football Title Contenders with Easiest 2015 Schedules
For college football's top teams as the 2015 season begins Thursday, the goal is clear: Put themselves in position to play for a national championship four months from now.
But as all teams aren't created equal, neither are the obstacles they're scheduled to face on their journey toward a title. Some have a much easier road than others, to the point that not being able to navigate the slate would be the biggest argument against their case to be worthy of a playoff bid.
Using teams that had the best odds to win the national title entering this season (according to OddsShark), we've ranked those championship contenders based on the ease of their 2015 schedules. Factors include the record of their opponents from last year, how many were bowl teams and how many of those bowl foes are being played on the road.
This isn't a list of all the potential title teams, since some have schedules that are considered far too difficult and thus have their hands full this season. Rather, this only ranks teams whose schedules are on the easier side of the spectrum.
9. Florida State Seminoles
1 of 9
Odds to win national title: 25-to-1
Opponents' combined 2014 record: 87-68
Games against 2014 bowl teams: 7
Road games vs. 2014 bowl teams: 5
Unlike in 2014, when Florida State was defending its national title and hoping to be a repeat champion, it doesn't have nearly as easy of a path to that goal. But it's still not a particularly treacherous one, even with the Seminoles having to face their two toughest ACC challengers on the road.
FSU will play at Georgia Tech and Clemson in a three-week span between Oct. 24 and Nov. 7. By that time, though, this young and inexperienced team will have had plenty of chances to grow together against a relatively unimposing slate.
In the first seven weeks, the toughest game will be Oct. 17 at home against Louisville. Before that the 'Noles play just two road games, at Boston College and Wake Forest—teams that are picked to finish fifth and seventh (respectively) in the Atlantic Division.
8. Oregon Ducks
2 of 9
Odds to win national title: 22-to-1
Opponents' combined 2014 record: 82-71
Games against 2014 bowl teams: 6
Road games vs. 2014 bowl teams: 4
If Oregon's 2015 schedule were to be equated to a stationary bike exercise program, the Ducks will be asked to perform at maximum intensity almost right off the bat before getting to coast for a long stretch. But ultimately, it will be their ability to handle an extended uphill climb at the end of the workout if they want to make a return trip to the playoffs.
Oregon has arguably the toughest nonconference road game of any title contender, visiting Michigan State on Sept. 12. Beating the Spartans at home last season provided enough goodwill for the Ducks to be able to withstand a home loss to Arizona a few weeks later, while MSU wasn't considered out of the running despite losing that early game in Eugene.
The same will be the case if Oregon falls in East Lansing early, since it will have five straight very manageable games—opponents' combined record: 23-40—after that one to rebound and prepare for the final stretch.
Oregon's final five games will determine its playoff chances, starting with an Oct. 29 trip to Arizona State and including a back-to-back pairing of Stanford (on the road) and at home against USC.
7. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
3 of 9
Odds to win national title: 12-to-1
Opponents' combined 2014 record: 83-70
Games against 2014 bowl teams: 8
Road games vs. 2014 bowl teams: 3
Without the benefit of having built-in quality opponents that come from a conference schedule, Notre Dame has to make its own playoff-worthy slate each year. The scheduling agreement with the ACC provides a few games every season, but the rest is up to the Fighting Irish, which can make things harder or easier on a year-to-year basis depending on what they feel their title chances are.
Notre Dame feels like it has the kind of team that could win a national title, and to assist in that cause, it's managed to assemble a schedule that will provide it with plenty of credit despite not being that tough from an overall standpoint.
While the Irish play eight power-conference teams and face eight that were in bowl games a year ago, those numbers are misleading. They drew Virginia and Wake Forest among this year's ACC games, along with Boston College, which is a shell of the team that went 7-6 a season ago. Notre Dame also gets Texas right off the bat, before Texas has time to figure out what it's capable of in 2015.
Notre Dame has to play two option teams, Georgia Tech and Navy, but gets them both at home. It's only significant road games are at Clemson on Oct. 3 and in the regular-season finale at Stanford, but history has shown that when Notre Dame heads to the West Coast with something on the line (1988 and 2012 at USC) it tends to win.
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6. Oklahoma Sooners
4 of 9
Odds to win national title: 33-to-1
Opponents' combined 2014 record: 75-76
Games against 2014 bowl teams: 7
Road games vs. 2014 bowl teams: 3
Bob Stoops' decision to go back to the Air Raid offense for 2015 was meant to help Oklahoma return to a time when they were regular contenders for a national title. And the Sooners have a schedule that will allow them to build up toward being in the hunt in the final month.
The Sept. 12 game at Tennessee will be a major challenge, but not one that will be impossible to handle. When Oklahoma was at its height under Stoops, from 2000 to 2010, there were plenty of tough road games that ended up becoming big wins.
After going to Knoxville, Oklahoma will play 2-10 Tulsa and then open Big 12 play with six straight games against the six lowest-rated teams from the league in 2014. That includes the Red River Shootout against Texas, but the only significant road trip would be to a rebuilding Kansas State.
It's November that will matter most for the Sooners, as they play powers Baylor and TCU in consecutive weeks, starting at Baylor, and then finish with Bedlam on the road against Oklahoma State.
5. UCLA Bruins
5 of 9
Odds to win national title: 40-to-1
Opponents' combined 2014 record: 76-76
Games against 2014 bowl teams: 6
Road games vs. 2014 bowl teams: 3
UCLA is starting a true freshman quarterback, something that no national champion has ever done from the first game of a season. If the Bruins were to make history and win a title with an 18-year-old at the helm, the significance of that feat is likely to overshadow what isn't a particularly rough schedule.
The Bruins have a nonconference slate that, while not made up of cupcakes, also is not daunting and thus will give Josh Rosen a nice cushion to ease into college football. The opener is against Virginia, which was 5-7 a year ago and made 2014 UCLA QB Brett Hundley look human last year. Then comes a road game at a UNLV team that was 2-11 last season and has a former high school coach in charge.
Then comes BYU, a good-but-not-great team that will have already played Nebraska and Boise State and will go to Michigan the week after UCLA, and thus won't be at full strength because of that rigorous slate.
UCLA's Pac-12 slate is toughest at the beginning and the end and very soft in the middle. It opens at Arizona, but the Bruins have had the Wildcats' number the last three years; then it faces Arizona State at home before visiting Stanford. After that it's a cakewalk until the final two weeks at Utah and USC.
If the Bruins are still in the playoff conversation by that point, and Rosen is still the starter, he'll no longer be looked at like a newcomer and instead will serve as an on-field leader for those final games.
4. Baylor Bears
6 of 9
Odds to win national title: 12-to-1
Opponents' combined 2014 record: 75-76
Games against 2014 bowl teams: 7
Road games vs. 2014 bowl teams: 3
When your toughest non-league game involves making a 100-mile trip to play a team that was a seven-point victory away from a winless season last year, it's hard to make a case for having a tough schedule. Baylor's season opener at SMU is likely to present the closest thing to a challenge as any game it plays until November.
Lamar. Rice. Texas Tech. Kansas. West Virginia. Iowa State. Only one of those is on the road, and that's at a Kansas team that by mid-October could have more walk-ons than scholarship players on its roster.
Only the Bears' final five-game stretch will matter in 2015, since nothing before that will produce much in the way of quality competition. That all comes at the end, when they play three of five on the road—including trips to Oklahoma State and TCU in a six-day span.
3. TCU Horned Frogs
7 of 9
Odds to win national title: 7-to-1
Opponents' combined 2014 record: 74-78
Games against 2014 bowl teams: 7
Road games vs. 2014 bowl teams: 4
TCU's push to earn the playoff bid that it didn't get in 2014 could come to an end on the first night of the 2015 season. If the Horned Frogs lose Thursday at Minnesota, the rest of their schedule might not be strong enough to help them get back into the race, at least not until November.
After the season opener, over the next two months, only the Oct. 10 game at Kansas State resembles anything that would be considered a dangerous stop on the road to the postseason. The rest of the foes in that stretch either finished below .500 last year or will be coming to Fort Worth.
Come November, though, the dial gets turned up. TCU has to play both Oklahoma schools on the road, and the game against the Sooners comes six days before the huge post-Thanksgiving clash with Baylor. That one is at home, otherwise the Frogs' final month would have pushed that further down this list in terms of schedule difficulty.
2. Stanford Cardinal
8 of 9
Odds to win national title: 40-to-1
Opponents' combined 2014 record: 87-68
Games against 2014 bowl teams: 7
Road games vs. 2014 bowl teams: 1
With an 8-5 record last season and several major losses on defense, you might be wondering why the oddsmakers have Stanford among its top title contenders. Consider this far more a product of the Cardinal's schedule than its personnel and performance level.
Despite playing in one of the toughest conferences in the country, Stanford's Pac-12 slate is very favorable. First and foremost, it plays on the much easier side of the league, the North, and both of the other schools in that division (Oregon and Washington) will come to Palo Alto. It also gets a rising California team at home, while the divisional road games are against Oregon State and Washington State.
The cross-divisional games provide the Cardinal's only road game against a team that went bowling last season, and that comes very early. Stanford plays at USC on Sept. 19, and if it were to sneak out with a victory there it's pretty much home cooking the rest of the way. All remaining notable games, against Arizona, UCLA and Notre Dame, will be in the Bay Area.
1. Ohio State Buckeyes
9 of 9
Odds to win national title: 5-to-2
Opponents' combined 2014 record: 86-69
Games against 2014 bowl teams: 9
Road games vs. 2014 bowl teams: 2
While it's not as light as what Florida State faced during its national title defense last year, there's no denying that Ohio State's schedule in 2015 isn't going to provide very many tests. Outside of the high-profile opener and a tough two-game finish, the rest of the lineup is pretty soft.
FSU's 11 FBS opponents during the 2014 regular season averaged 6.5 wins last year, compared to 7.2 for Ohio State this fall. The Seminoles got to start their title defense in a neutral-site game against a rebuilding Oklahoma State team, while OSU visits the Virginia Tech squad it lost to at home the year before.
And the 'Noles late-season clashes with rivals Miami and Florida were far less imposing than the Michigan State/Michigan two-step the Buckeyes end with in November.
Those final two games provide the only significant matchups for OSU after Monday's opener at Virginia Tech, and that's only by default in comparison to the rest of the schedule. The Buckeyes rolled past Michigan State on the road in 2014 and now get the Spartans at home. Then their finale at Michigan is more about the rivalry and the hype associated with coaches Urban Meyer and Jim Harbaugh than the matchup itself.
What makes OSU's schedule the easiest—by far—of any 2015 title contender comes in the fact the lineup from Sept. 12 through Nov. 14. Though it includes six bowl opponents, five of those are at home and two of those are Mid-American Conference schools. And the only road trip to a bowl foe in that stretch comes Nov. at Illinois, which last beat the Buckeyes in Champaign in 1991.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
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