CBS Sports: Texas football has the Big 12’s second-hardest schedule heading into 2020

The less-than-good news keeps coming.

It’s not like a global pandemic isn’t already complicating college football enough, especially for the Texas Longhorns, who are rumored to have a positive COVID-19 case in the building, according to 247Sports. So is the national unrest over the Minneapolis police-involved killing of George Floyd and its subsequent aftermath of protests and riots — a situation that has bubbled up to the extent that Texas receiver Brennan Eagles threatened to sit the season in protest. It remains unclear whether or not he will follow through.

Adding to the mounting stress is the fact that CBS Sports has a model that predicts the Longhorns will have the Big 12 conference’s second-hardest 2020 regular season schedule.

From CBS Sports: “... [If] it weren’t for Kansas, the Longhorns would be [ranked] No. 1 in the Big 12. This is thanks mostly to a road game against LSU in its nonconference schedule. That’s the toughest noncon game any Big 12 team will play this season. Throw in the annual meeting with Oklahoma, as well as getting Oklahoma State in Stillwater, and this has the makings of a tough schedule. What kept it from the top 10 ... was a game with UTEP.”

It’s not like CBS Sports is using quackery methodology. Writer Tom Fornelli ranked all “130 teams using use a statistical model that judges teams based on their performances in game [and] rankings from the previous seasons to get an idea of how good any given team can expect to be in the next season. Teams are then given a weight that coincides with their past performance, and these weights are applied when going through each team’s schedule.” Fornelli then adds or subtracts “additional weights based on where and when the game is being played. Road games are more difficult than home games, for example, and playing a Thursday night game after playing the previous Saturday adds a degree of difficulty. Playing eight straight weeks without a bye does, too.” It holds up, in other words.

Then again, there’s always room for error.

At least, as Longhorns, we hope.