I have even more respect for Brad Edwards after this response. Gabe, Houston: About strength of schedule.... Isn't it unfair that this penalizes a team for something they can't control? It also penalizes them for other reasons- if team A beats a highly ranked team B and beats them early in the season, but Team B subseqently loses key players and drops from the rankings, Team A is not rewarded at all for beating a quality team. Wouldn't it just be easier to determine strength of schedule based on the previous year's rankings? This would also allow a team that wants to make a run for the championship to load their schedule with teams they know will give them schedule strength points. Brad Edwards: (1:56 PM ET ) I'm certainly not in favor of using the previous year's records or rankings, but I agree that the schedule strength calculation needs to be improved. This is all you need to know about the way the BCS figures strength of schedule: Playing the tandem of Texas (10-2) and Arizona (2-10) computes to being equal to playing Kansas (6-6) and Northwestern (6-6). Clearly, if you are a nationally-elite team, it would be much more difficult to get past Texas than to beat both Kansas and Northwestern. Schedule strength for the BCS, in my opinion, should take into consideration how difficult the schedule is for a highly-ranked team, not how difficult it would be for an average team. The only purpose of the BCS, after all, is to determine which are the best two teams in the country. ****** Brad says what all of us have argued against USC.
