What the draw was worth
Sixteen teams play nine conference games out of a possible fifteen. Nobody plays everybody, so two teams finishing 7‑2 did not attempt the same thing — and the standings cannot tell you which of them had the harder road. This can.
TCU drew the hardest schedule in the league and Kansas State drew the easiest. Between them sits 1.04 of an expected win — worth about one game every other season, which is roughly the margin that decides a championship-game berth.
Each bar is that team's own schedule measured against what the same team would average across all sixteen schedules. Same roster, same strength, sixteen different roads: only the schedule changes, so only the schedule is being measured.
How to read the numbers
Two different things live in the table below, and telling them apart is the whole trick.
- vs average is the schedule. A team's own draw minus what it would average across all sixteen. Negative is a harder road than typical. This is the only column about scheduling, and the one the table is sorted by.
- Own draw is mostly the team. Texas Tech expects 7.8 conference wins and Oklahoma State 2.3, and that gap is about how good they are, not about who they play. Comparing this column down the page tells you very little.
- Hardest and easiest slate are the extremes behind the first column: the schedule that would cost this team the most wins, and the one that would cost it least, with whose schedule it is.
| Team | vs average | Own draw | Hardest slate | Easiest slate | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 TCU | -0.48 | 3.9 | 3.9 | CIN | 4.9 | KSU |
 Cincinnati | -0.39 | 3.1 | 3.1 | TCU | 4.0 | UCF |
 Colorado | -0.25 | 1.7 | 1.6 | CIN | 2.3 | BYU |
 Iowa State | -0.21 | 3.7 | 3.4 | TCU | 4.6 | TTU |
 Kansas | -0.19 | 3.3 | 3.0 | TCU | 4.2 | TTU |
 Houston | -0.18 | 5.4 | 5.0 | TCU | 6.2 | KSU |
 Arizona | -0.11 | 4.7 | 4.3 | TCU | 5.4 | KSU |
 West Virginia | -0.07 | 2.8 | 2.4 | TCU | 3.5 | KSU |
 Arizona State | -0.06 | 2.6 | 2.4 | TCU | 3.1 | UTAH |
 Baylor | -0.03 | 5.0 | 4.5 | CIN | 5.6 | KSU |
 BYU | +0.07 | 6.1 | 5.6 | TCU | 6.6 | TTU |
 Utah | +0.18 | 7.3 | 6.7 | ASU | 7.5 | KSU |
 Oklahoma State | +0.28 | 4.7 | 3.8 | TCU | 4.9 | KSU |
 UCF | +0.42 | 5.2 | 4.3 | CIN | 5.5 | TTU |
 Texas Tech | +0.45 | 7.1 | 6.3 | ISU | 7.1 | KSU |
 Kansas State | +0.56 | 5.6 | 4.5 | TCU | 5.7 | TTU |
Every team on every schedule
| ARIZ | ASU | BYU | BAY | CIN | COLO | HOU | ISU | KU | KSU | OKST | TCU | TTU | UCF | UTAH | WVU | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARIZ | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.4 | 4.4 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 5.4 | 5.1 | 4.3 | 5.2 | 5.2 | 4.9 | 4.7 |
| ASU | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.6 | 2.6 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 2.8 | 2.6 | 2.5 | 3.0 | 2.9 | 2.4 | 3.0 | 2.9 | 3.1 | 2.6 |
| BYU | 5.9 | 6.0 | 6.1 | 6.0 | 5.7 | 5.6 | 5.8 | 5.9 | 5.9 | 6.5 | 6.2 | 5.6 | 6.6 | 6.5 | 6.1 | 5.7 |
| BAY | 4.9 | 5.0 | 5.1 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 5.0 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.9 | 5.6 | 5.3 | 4.5 | 5.5 | 5.5 | 5.4 | 4.7 |
| CIN | 3.3 | 3.3 | 3.5 | 3.6 | 3.1 | 3.3 | 3.2 | 3.2 | 3.3 | 3.9 | 3.8 | 3.1 | 3.9 | 4.0 | 3.5 | 3.4 |
| COLO | 2.1 | 1.9 | 2.3 | 1.8 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.7 | 1.9 | 1.9 | 2.1 | 2.1 | 1.7 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 1.9 | 1.9 |
| HOU | 5.4 | 5.2 | 5.7 | 5.6 | 5.2 | 5.5 | 5.4 | 5.3 | 5.3 | 6.2 | 5.9 | 5.0 | 6.1 | 6.1 | 5.7 | 5.5 |
| ISU | 3.8 | 3.7 | 3.9 | 3.8 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.9 | 3.7 | 3.7 | 4.4 | 4.2 | 3.4 | 4.6 | 4.3 | 4.0 | 3.8 |
| KU | 3.5 | 3.4 | 3.5 | 3.4 | 3.1 | 3.1 | 3.5 | 3.3 | 3.3 | 3.9 | 3.7 | 3.0 | 4.2 | 3.8 | 3.5 | 3.4 |
| KSU | 4.9 | 4.9 | 5.2 | 5.0 | 4.6 | 4.9 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.9 | 5.6 | 5.3 | 4.5 | 5.7 | 5.4 | 5.3 | 4.7 |
| OKST | 4.3 | 4.3 | 4.6 | 4.4 | 3.9 | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.9 | 4.7 | 3.8 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.7 | 4.3 |
| TCU | 4.2 | 4.1 | 4.4 | 4.3 | 3.9 | 4.0 | 4.3 | 4.1 | 4.2 | 4.9 | 4.7 | 3.9 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.5 | 4.3 |
| TTU | 6.5 | 6.7 | 6.6 | 6.6 | 6.3 | 6.6 | 6.4 | 6.3 | 6.3 | 7.1 | 7.0 | 6.3 | 7.1 | 6.9 | 6.9 | 6.6 |
| UCF | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.3 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 4.6 | 5.4 | 5.1 | 4.3 | 5.5 | 5.2 | 5.1 | 4.5 |
| UTAH | 7.0 | 6.7 | 7.2 | 6.9 | 6.9 | 7.2 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.2 | 7.5 | 7.2 | 6.8 | 7.5 | 7.3 | 7.3 | 7.2 |
| WVU | 2.8 | 2.8 | 3.2 | 3.1 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.7 | 2.7 | 3.5 | 3.1 | 2.4 | 3.2 | 3.4 | 2.8 | 2.8 |
Read a row: that team's expected wins on each column's schedule. Color is within the row — green where that schedule is easier than the row's own average, red where it is harder. Coloring by raw wins instead would have just restated which teams are good, in color, and lost the question entirely. The outlined diagonal is the schedule each team actually drew.
A team cannot play itself. Where a borrowed schedule contains the borrower, it faces the team it borrowed from instead — Houston on Texas Tech's slate still plays Texas Tech. Without that substitution, borrowing the best team's schedule would quietly delete the best team from your season and score it as an easier road; it inflated this spread by roughly half a win. Win probabilities come from the same rating ensemble as the championship odds.