Georgia football: Strength of schedule works in Dawgs’ favor

Georgia football and fans of most schools love looking at the strength of the schedule to justify just how hard a season could be. Strength of schedule is one of the most popular methods of analyzing a team’s schedule and trying to predict how the season will pan out.

It isn’t foolproof, given the considerable roster turnover with every team year-to-year. Still, it can provide a relative idea of how tough a team’s season could be while providing plenty of talking points for the media.

While having a tough schedule can help a team down the road— especially if they are victorious — sometimes having a more manageable schedule can be a good thing.

247Sports released its preseason strength of schedule ranking, listing the teams with the toughest schedules to open the season.

This year’s strength of schedule for Georgia football will benefit them in the long run.

https://twitter.com/247Sports/status/1555303731159236608?s=20&t=61WXxZn5-3Vnjf5WmjYtLA

The Dawgs were ranked No. 15 as they’re slated to face both Oregon and South Carolina in September, but that is about the extent of the respect Georgia gets regarding its strength of schedule.

FBSchedules has Georgia ranked No. 94 out of all 130 teams based on its opponents’ combined win/loss ratio from 2021, the lowest ranking of any SEC team. Viewing these rankings could generally be positive, but wins and losses from a previous season are hardly indicative of how good these teams will be in 2022.

A weaker strength of schedule could be used as an argument to discredit any success Georgia may have, as well as ammunition against the team’s College Football Playoff case if a game is lost at some point during the season.

Regardless of these types of feeble attempts by the media to push narratives about weak schedules, as long as the Dawgs handle business week-to-week, they’ll be right where they want to be at the end of the season anyway.

Determining the strength of the schedule based on opponent wins and losses can be misleading. Georgia can’t play Georgia, so other teams’ schedules will be inherently more difficult for having to face the defending national champions.

Two teams in the top five 247Sports rankings (Oregon and South Carolina) are there because both will square off with the Dawgs in September. Georgia has become the standard that other teams strive to reach, and that skews how tough its schedule is perceived to be.

In the SEC, the level of competition is consistently high, even for teams with less impressive records. The lower strength of schedule in other conferences can lead to monumental letdowns in big games when a more competitive team is actually faced.

Regardless of the win/loss numbers, Georgia will be battle-tested by default simply by facing an SEC schedule. The media and fans will say what they want, but the talking season is almost over, and the chatter tends to quiet down a bit once the games have played.