College football guru Phil Steele takes a look at which teams played the toughest schedules in 2010. Not surprisingly, the Eagles finished in the bottom third of the ACC with a SOS of 54. Florida State (14), Miami (15), Duke (20) and North Carolina top the conference this year, while Boston College (54), Maryland (55), Virginia Tech (64) and Virginia (67) round out the conference's bottom four teams.
BC's upcoming bowl opponent, Nevada, has a strength of schedule of just 97.
That's apparently good news as Steele then takes a look at this year's bowl match-ups and compares each team's strength of schedule. Of the top 10 bowl games with the biggest difference in SOS the last two seasons, Steele has found that the team with the higher ranked SOS has gone 13-7.
It just so happens that this year's Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl is the bowl game with the sixth highest difference in schedule strength:
1. Liberty Bowl: Georgia (43) vs UCF (114) Schedule Difference: 71
2. Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma (18) vs Connecticut (78) Schedule Difference: 60
3. New Mexico Bowl: BYU (61) vs UTEP (117) Schedule Difference: 56
4. Orange Bowl: Stanford (10) vs Virginia Tech (64) Schedule Difference: 54
5. Holiday Bowl: Washington (3) vs Nebraska (50) Schedule Difference: 47
6. Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl: Boston College (54) vs Nevada (97) Schedule Difference: 43
6. Armed Forces Bowl: SMU (69) vs Army (112) Schedule Difference: 43
8. Sugar Bowl: Arkansas (29) vs Ohio St (71) Schedule Difference: 42
9. BCs National Championship: Auburn (12) vs Oregon (53) Schedule Difference: 41
10. Humanitarian Bowl: Fresno St (80) vs Northern Illinois (119) Schedule Difference: 39
(LOL at New England's first BCS bowl team)
Twenty games and two years of data doesn't seem all that statistically significant, so take this for what it's worth. That being said, consider that BC last two bowl games made Steele's top 10 in terms of the highest difference in SOS. Last year's Emerald Bowl was the ninth worst SOS disparity -- USC (17) vs. BC (65), while the 2008 Music City Bowl was that year's seventh highest difference in SOS -- Vanderbilt (14) vs. BC (52). The Eagles, of course, lost both games.