While the small details like attendance numbers and social distancing guidelines haven’t been specified for the 2021 football season, the schedules are set for teams across the country. According to ESPN’s College Football Power Index, the Auburn football team faces the second most challenging schedule in the FBS league.
There are so many moving factors involved in creating college football schedules, but it all starts with locking down the conference games. In the SEC, each team plays eight conference games a year–four home and four away games–and then the other four are non-conference games scheduled by the schools themselves. Of course, this leads to a million questions involving money, tv networks, in-state goodwill, etc, so scheduling can get pretty complicated.
That being said, the strength of schedule is a factor that supposedly contributes to the selection of the final four teams in the College Football Playoffs, but it seems curious that the teams that have spent the past few years at the top of the college football power rankings don’t even graze the top ten most difficult schedules. Despite the daunting list of teams the Tigers are set to face in 2021, there are good and bad parts to having such a tough schedule this year.
On the one hand, Bryan Harsin’s initiation to the world of SEC college football will basically be trial by fire at this point. Conference play begins in week five at LSU, which is ranked #18 heading into the season, and immediately picks up with #7 Georgia at home the following week. UGA marks just one of four top-ten opponents the Tigers will face this season.
However, it could be taken as a positive that all four of Auburn football’s non-conference games are lined up at the beginning of the schedule. Though this means that the Tigers won’t get any cupcakes handed to them later in the season, it does mean that Bryan Harsin will have a couple of games to get his head on straight and make adjustments before the top ten conference opponents arrive at Jordan-Hare.
At the very least, it’s interesting that No. 16 Auburn will have the second-most challenging schedule but No. 1 Alabama will have the 13th most difficult, No. 2 Oklahoma will have the 17th most difficult, and No. 3 Clemson has the 55th most difficult schedule.
Head coach Bryan Harsin may not have an easy year ahead of him, but it’s a major opportunity for the new leader to show that he can run with the big dogs in the SEC.