Sorry MT, "strength of schedule" is nothing more than wins and losses. It has nothing to do with who you are playing, just what their record is and their opponent's record (2/3 opponents and 1/3 opponent's opponents.)
It has nothing to do with a subjective ranking of teams.
East Coast bias by the media? HA! Go check the rankings from the end of last year. Hell, dig up the thread from last year if you can where I said the same thing I'm saying right now. Oregon was ranked #2 in both voting polls at the end of last year. Yup, the MEDIA and the coaches (or whoever voted for that coach) had Oregon as the team to play Miami.
Let's see what happened. Miami was the clear #1. Nebraska was 4th in both. So before the computers came in, Oregon had a 2 point lead for the #2 spot. (Oregon also had a 1 point lead over Colorado.)
Computer scores are next. Nebraska had a 2.17 avg (throw out highest and lowest score then avg the remaining 6), Colorado had 4.50 and Oregon had 4.87. Nebraska is now in the lead with 6.17 to Oregon's 6.87 and Colorado's 7.50.
Why did this happen? 4 polls used margin of victory and 4 didn't. The 4 that did had Nebraska 2, 3, 2, 2 and Oregon 8, 7, 6, 7. those that didn't were Neb 2, 2, 2, 3 Ore 3, 3, 3, 2. It's obvious that margin of victory is what propelled Nebraska over Oregon at this point. Avg the 4 that did NOT use MOV and you have Neb 2.25 and Oregon 2.75, which would have left Oregon with a 1.5 point advantage. Col would have had a 4.25 from their 4 non MOV scores, so Oregon would have opened a 2.5 lead on Colorado.
We move on to "schedule strength." Once again, objective wins and losses. Neb 14, Col 2, Ore 31. Gives 0.56, 0.08 and 1.24 points. We now add in losses. Neb lost 1, Col 2 and Ore 1. scores are now Neb 7.73, Col 9.58 and Ore 9.07.
Lastly the quality win component. Neb beat Oklahoma for a -0.5. Colorado beat Nebraska and Texas for a -2.3. Oregon beat Wash and Wash St for -0.4.
Final scores 7.23 Neb, 7.28 Col and 8.67 Oregon.
If you remove the four MOV computers, you'd have gotten 7.31 for Neb, 7.03 for Col and 6.55 for Oregon.
Conclusion? There was no East Coast media bias or East Coast bias at all that slighted Oregon last year. It was margin of victory in 4 computer polls that did it. It also did it to Miami when FSU went to the Orange Bowl after the 2000 season instead of Miami (caveat here is that Miami would have gone if the quality win component was in effect in 2000.)
