CFB DeptHITS: Thursday, January 23

We'll get caught up on the news from around college football over the past 24 hours and take a look at our final Strength of Schedule+ numbers from a wild 2024 season.

Today, we’ll get you caught up on a few of the bigger notes from the transfer portal and coaching carousel first and foremost. Then, we’ll take a look at our unique Strength of Schedule+ metric and who actually faced the toughest schedules in 2024. Enjoy!

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|||||| THE HITS

Florida International ::: The Panthers get a big boost with the withdrawal of RB Kejon Owens [15.1] from the portal. He'll return to FIU for the 2025 season after true freshman Devonte Lyons burst on the scene late in the season to take over as the full-time runner. New head coach Willie Simmons must have done some convincing that Owens would retain a big role and now he’s sticking around.

Notre Dame ::: WR Jayden Thomas [12.6] is hitting the portal after having seen his involvement in the Notre Dame offense dwindle a bit. He played in all 16 games this season but racked up just 27 targets, 18 catches for 160 yards and two touchdowns. He's a class of 2021 4-star recruit out of Pace Academy in Atlanta and is now looking for a new place to play in what we deem as his final year of eligibility.

Another wide receiver leaving the Irish is Deion Colzie [12.7], who was also a four-star recruit in that 2021 class. He was less involved this season, getting just 7 targets. He'll move on to a place he can get more involved in the action for his final season of eligibility.

In coaching news, defensive coordinator Al Golden is leaving the Irish after three seasons to take the same play-calling role for the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals. Golden, a veteran in coaching, will head back to the Bengals where he was the linebackers coach in 2020 and 2021 before being hired to join Marcus Freeman's staff at Notre Dame. He led the Irish to one of the top defensive units in 2024 on their run to the National Title game. Freeman will now be charged with replacing a key role on his staff.

The FCS-level East Tennessee State (ETSU) Buccaneers are stockpiling former FBS starting quarterbacks. Just a week after signing one Cade McNamara from Iowa, former Southern Miss head coach Will Healy has landed two-time former North Carolina (with a stop at Arkansas) QB Jacolby Criswell [13.5]. An interesting situation for the two veterans as there appears to be a battle for this job at the lower level.

James Madison ::: WR Abdur-Rahmaan Yaseen [12.6] has quicky decommitted from James Madison after his announcement he would join the Dukes for 2025. Yaseen is leaving USF after starting his career at Purdue. He's racked up 55 catches for 710 yards and no touchdowns in his career thus far. He’ll look to get more involved (and find pay dirt) for this his final season in college football. We now know it won't be in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Texas A&M ::: Mike Elko is building up his defensive staff with the hiring of Lyle Hemphill from James Madison. Hemphill was the Dukes' defensive coordinator this past season after time spent on Elko's staff at Duke where he was the safeties coach in 2022, earning a promotion to co-defensive coordinator in 2023. The two crossed paths back in 2016 at Hofstra as well. He is likely to work with the secondary for the Aggies and is likely being groomed to take over as defensive coordinator in the not-so distant future.

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|||||| A LOOK AT SOS+

At CFBDepth.com, we like to put our own little data analytics spin on the standard metrics used to judge certain aspects of our game. We have done this for the popular (but flawed) “strength of schedule” metric by providing a number of timeframes to help determine how difficult or easy the road ahead (or already traveled) is/was for a certain squad.

• SOS+ /// We start with a pre-season look at SOS for the season ahead. This will launch as a part of our ‘State of the Chart’ releases this coming off-season. Our spin on this one is that we take into account both home-field advantage and the depth for each program to make adjustments later in the season with expected injury/player status impacts sure to hit. Of course, we can’t predict injuries or player absences, but we can assume that each team will have some level of them. We have “depth grades” for each program based on the depth charts and player ratings. Therefore, we’ll make adjustments for those teams later in the season when assessing the upcoming season.

  • Example: Let’s go back to our Indiana Hoosiers. Going into the season, we had them at a very high-level of rotation talent. However, their depth grade was lower than that of the Big Ten bluebloods (Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, etc.) So, when determining SOS+ for the upcoming season — we didn’t just use that rotation talent rating/ranking for the entire season. UCLA played the Hoosiers in week three. That was not the same impact as when They played Michigan in week 11. There is a slight, built-in impact due to a lower depth grade.

• SOS>N3 /// In-season, we find it valuable to take a look at who is facing a gauntlet and/or a breather in their next three weeks. This ranking is displayed on the team pages in the ‘Strength of Schedule’ section at the top.

• SOS> /// We do also take a look at who has the toughest/easiest schedule for the remainder of the season. This simply takes the remaining games and ranks each squad based on the opponent level at the time (again, taking into account a depth grade adjustment as it rolls along).

• SOS# /// This is the one we want to highlight today. Our SOS# metric is one that takes a look back at the games played and ranks based on the ‘point in time’ rating/ranking of each team when they played the game. There in lies the hook we like to point out that differentiates our SOS analysis. We all know that teams ravaged by injuries are not the same as a healthy team, obviously. Then, how can you get a true idea of how difficult a schedule was without taking that into account. That’s why we get the rating/ranking of the LIVE team at the time the game was played.

  • Let’s head to Tucson, AZ for this example. The Wildcats were one of those teams ravaged by injury. In week one, New Mexico got this team at full strength, which was 55th overall. When TCU hosted this team in week 13, the injuries were in full force and Arizona’s overall team ranking was down to 77th. That is what is taken into account when developing our full-on SOS# analysis.

So, let’s take a look at where this ended up in 2024, shall we?

TOP TEN MOST DIFFICULT SCHEDULES:

1. Florida Gators

2. Michigan Wolverines

3. UCLA Bruins

4. USC Trojans

5. Texas Longhorns

6. Ohio State Buckeyes

7. Notre Dame Fighting Irish

8. Penn State Nittany Lions

9. Alabama Crimson Tide

10. Georgia Bulldogs

11. Houston Cougars

12. LSU Tigers

13. Washington Huskies

14. Wisconsin Badgers

15. Arizona State Sun Devils

Not many surprises in this group with 12 of the 15 residing in the SEC or Big Ten. The outliers were the Notre Dame (Independent) gauntlet and two Big XII schools with Houston and Arizona State.

Here are the top five most difficult schedules from non-Power Four schools:

1. Tulane Green Wave (69th overall)

2. Old Dominion Monarchs (70th)

3. Navy Midshipmen (72nd)

4. Temple Owls (73rd)

5. Nevada Wolfpack (74th)

Another interesting observation here is that the clear dilineation between the power four conference schools and the ‘group of five’ participants. It’s not surprising, but we thought maybe somebody could sneak up higher than where Tulane comes in at 69th. That really means that every power four school played a more difficult schedule than that of their counterparts in the lower-rated conferences. For the record, we are counting Oregon State, Washington State and Notre Dame in the P4 for this exercise.

So, who took advantage of an easier schedule from the power four schools this season? Let’s take a look:

1. North Carolina Tar Heels (68th)

2. Indiana Hoosiers (67th)

3. Syracuse Orange (66th)

4. North Carolina State Wolfpack (65th)

5. TCU Horned Frogs (64th)

Indiana jumps off the page with this one as they rolled through a relatively easy start to their 10-game winning streak to start the season. FIU (113th), Western Illinois (246), at UCLA (65), Charlotte (116), Maryland (75) and at Northwestern (76) were the first six games. It got a little tougher after the bye in week seven as they took on Nebraska (35), Washington (40), at Michigan State (67) and Michigan (24). All of that before getting Ohio State and suffering their only loss of the regular season. They finished with a cakewalk over Purdue. Looking back, the Hoosiers played just one team within our SOS+ top 25 (outside of Ohio State). Does that put a damper on their season? We’ll let you decide.

That’s our show for today. We hope you are enjoying this content. We’ll be here all “off-season” to keep you up to speed — and bring it all together with our official ‘State of the Chart’ preview magazine in July (with updates all the way to kickoff). More to come on that here shortly. Please consider subscribing and spreading the word or our little data-driven corner of the college football analytics world. Thank you!