3 college football teams with toughest schedules in 2024 season
With college football just around the corner, some teams are preparing for a veritable who's who on their schedule. The SEC in particular got more challenging with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma.
Adding USC and Washington to the Big Ten also upped the intensity of that league. But all teams aren't facing an equal challenge. Here are the three teams with the toughest schedules in 2024.
Three college football toughest schedules in 2024
#3 Oklahoma Sooners
Welcome to the SEC, Sooners. It's a brutal slate for Oklahoma. The Sooner open with a trio of pre-conference home games, but Houston could be a challenge. But after that, conference play gets brutal in a hurry.
September concludes with a visit from Tennessee and a game at Auburn. October includes the showdown with Texas and a trip to Ole Miss. November concludes with a brutal stretch of at Missouri, at home against Alabama and at LSU. That's a batch of genuinely difficult challenges for Oklahoma.
#2 USC Trojans
Another power program in a new conference spot for 2024 has a challenging schedule.
The Trojans open their season with a neutral site game with LSU that's a challenging beginning. After a home game with Utah State, USC has to travel to Michigan. A potential 1-2 start could be very real.
A home game against Wisconsin ends September. October includes a home game with Penn State and long road trips to Minnesota and Maryland. November includes road games at Washington and UCLA and home matchups with Nebraska and Notre Dame.
The USC schedule genuinely resembles a list of college football's most powerful programs. The Trojans are coming off a ho-hum season with the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft at quarterback in the old Pac-12 conference. The dominos don't stack up well for the 2024 season.
#1 Florida Gators
Florida has struggled in Billy Napier's first two seasons and faces a near NFL-level college football schedule. The Gators open with a home game with transfer portal-refreshed Miami. September includes a home game with Texas A&M and a trip to cowbell-heavy Mississippi State.
October includes a visit to Tennessee and a home game at Kentucky, who has bested Florida in each of the last two seasons. But it's November that's absolutely soul-crushing.
The Gators face Georgia in their annual battle, go to Texas, host LSU and Ole Miss and travel to Florida State. That could reasonably be an 0-5 month, and, frankly, 1-4 would be something of a moral victory. The Gators have a series of massive challenges, but that November is especially insane.
Whose college football schedule strikes you as the toughest? Weigh in below with your thoughts in our comments section: