The College Football Playoff Committee will release its first set of rankings in just over a week.

Since the very first CFP rankings release in 2014, that has meant almost non-stop talk about the SEC. That first set of rankings in Week 10 of 2014 included three Southeastern Conference schools in the top four: Mississippi State, Auburn, and Ole Miss. None of them ended up making the playoffs.

In the years since, the SEC’s flagship program, Alabama, has found its way in the Playoff field in every season. This was even true in 2017, when they didn’t win their division, didn’t win their conference, had zero wins over top-15 teams, and entered the postseason off of a two-score loss in their regular season finale.

The conversation around the league’s potential Playoff candidates always centers around what a grueling slog it is to play such brutally difficult opponents every week. Other leagues’ candidates are derided for “not playin’ nobody” and “playing a high school schedule” and so on.

Saturday night late in the third quarter of the Michigan/Notre Dame game, Chris Fowler said he would put Ohio State at No. 1 if he had a vote in the polls, but “you can question their schedule, as people do.”

This seemed like a great opportunity to take a purely objective look at the Buckeyes’ resume as compared to some of the SEC teams who are automatically assumed to have played an absolutely murderous schedule deserving of every possible benefit of the doubt in the selection process.

The numbers below all come from the SP+ analytics system which was created and run by a Mizzou grad and is currently published on ESPN.com. SP+ is a tempo-neutral and opponent-adjusted measure of teams. So if you truly “ain’t played nobody” then a series of blowout wins doesn’t get you very far.

The SP+ schedule strength ratings will be released later this week. The handful of ones listed below are sourced directly from this tweet from that aforementioned Mizzou grad, Bill Connelly, who puts the SP+ together.

Below you’ll find Ohio State’s rankings in all categories as a baseline, as well as the rankings for each SEC team. We’ll go through all 14 members of the SEC because the conference’s depth is always touted as one of its great strengths. Each team will have a listing for the closest comparable Big Ten team. So when people say that a win over one team is far more or less impressive than someone else’s win, you’ll know whether they’re right.

Just for comparison’s sake, here are Ohio State’s results with comparable SEC teams and common opponents swapped in for the Big Ten and non-conference teams, and Alabama, LSU, and Georgia’s with the reverse.

Most teams swapped in are ranked within a couple places of the team they replaced. Toward the bottom of the scale there are fewer choices, so you’ll see Rutgers several times.

Ohio State: Beat Utah State 45-21, Beat South Carolina 42-0, Won at Texas A&M 51-10, Beat Vanderbilt 76-5, Won at Mississippi State 48-7, Beat Texas 34-10, Won at Duke 52-3, Beat Auburn 38-7.

Alabama: Beat Illinois 42-3, Beat Rutgers 62-10, Won at Cincinnati 47-23, Beat Northwestern 49-7, Beat Purdue 59-31, Won at Iowa 47-28, Beat Nebraska 35-13, Beat Rutgers 48-7.

LSU: Beat Rutgers 55-3, Won at Cincinnati 45-38, Beat FCS team 65-14, Won at Rutgers, 66-38, Beat Illinois 42-6, Beat Minnesota 42-28, Won at Nebraska 36-13, Beat Michigan 23-20.

Georgia: Won at Rutgers, 30-6, Beat FCS team 63-17, Beat Northwestern 55-0, Beat Indiana 23-17, Won at Nebraska 43-14, Lost to Cincinnati 20-17, Beat Purdue 21-0.

Auburn: Beat Minnesota 27-21, Beat Cincinnati 24-6, Beat Rutgers 55-16, Won at Iowa 28-20, Beat Nebraska 56-23, Lost at Michigan 24-13, Won at Rutgers 51-10, Lost at Ohio State 23-20.

Florida: Beat Michigan State 24-20, Beat FCS team 45-0, Won at Purdue 29-21, Beat Nebraska 34-3, Beat FCS team 38-0, Beat Michigan 24-13, Lost at Ohio State 42-28, Beat Cincinnati 38-27.

Maybe there are people who think that running through Illinois, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Northwestern, Purdue, Iowa, Nebraska, and Rutgers again constitutes a real gauntlet. Or perhaps when you look objectively at Alabama, you can question their schedule.

Here are the individual team profiles for OSU and every SEC team.

Ohio State

Record: 8-0
SP+ Ranking: 1
SP+ Schedule Strength: 37th
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Wisconsin (38-7, 8th)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Indiana (51-10, 23rd)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Michigan State (34-10, 29th)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): None
Closest SEC Comparison: Alabama (2nd)
Notes: Two top-25 wins in SP+, as well as MSU (#29), Cincinnati (#32), and Nebraska (#44) in the top-50. Will finish the season with Penn State (#7) and at Michigan (#11) back-to-back, likely followed by either Wisconsin again (#8) or Minnesota (#12).

Alabama

Record: 8-0
SP+ Ranking: 2
SP+ Schedule Strength: 88th
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Texas A&M (47-28, 21st)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): at South Carolina (47-26, 36th)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Tennessee (35-13, 46th)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): None
Closest B1G Comparison: Ohio State (1st)
Notes: One win over a top-25 team in SP+. Texas A&M is ranked one spot behind Iowa. South Carolina is four spots behind Cincinnati. Tennessee is two spots behind Nebraska. That’s one fewer top-25 and two fewer top-50 wins than Ohio State. They will play LSU in two weeks then finish at Auburn, but at this point, it’s looking very likely that an unbeaten Ohio State would finish the regular season with more top-15 and top-25 wins than the Tide.

LSU

Record: 8-0
SP+ Ranking: 3
SP+ Schedule Strength: 46th
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Auburn (23-20, 10th)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Florida (42-28, 13th)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Texas (45-38, 31st)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank):  None
Closest B1G Comparison: Ohio State (1st)
Notes: LSU’s resume is impressive, although probably not quite as impressive as it seemed now that Texas has fallen off a cliff. The Tigers have one top-10 win, two top-25 wins, and four top-50 wins. Note their strength of schedule above – they’re actually below OSU.

Georgia

Record: 6-1
SP+ Ranking: 6
SP+ Schedule Strength:
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Notre Dame (23-17, 25th)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Tennessee (43-14, 46th)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Kentucky (21-0, 54th)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. South Carolina (20-17, 36th)
Closest B1G Comparison: Penn State (7th)
Notes: Notre Dame getting obliterated at Michigan was a big blow to their best win. Also not helping: a home loss against a team that would rank as the fifth-best opponent on the Buckeyes’ schedule so far. Much like Alabama, they will play some actual opponents in the coming weeks. The neutral-site game against Florida will give one of the teams a second loss. A trip to Auburn later in November should be a second good data point. But the Bulldogs will almost certainly end the season well behind Ohio State in schedule strength.

Auburn

Record: 6-2
SP+ Ranking: 10
SP+ Schedule Strength: 
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): Oregon (27-21, 14th)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Texas A&M (21-20, 21st)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Mississippi State (56-23, 42nd)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Florida (24-13, 13th), at LSU (23-20, 3rd)
Closest B1G Comparison: Michigan (11th)
Notes: They’ve played some impressive opponents so far, but gone 2-2 against the top-40 teams they’ve faced. The neutral-site win over Oregon is the league’s most-impressive non-conference win by a wide margin.

Florida

Record: 7-1
SP+ Ranking: 13th
SP+ Schedule Strength:
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Auburn (24-13, 10th)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): Miami (24-20, 30th)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): at South Carolina (38-27, 36th)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): at LSU (42-28, 3rd)
Closest B1G Comparison: Minnesota (12th)
Notes: Yes, they’re ranked one spot behind Minnesota. Really. The win over Auburn was big, but the Gators’ resume gets really thin after that. Heading into November, an SEC team’s second-best win is a four-point victory over a 4-4 ACC Coastal team. If they get through Georgia, the rest of the schedule is a joke: Vanderbilt, at Mizzou, Florida State.

Texas A&M

Record: 5-3
SP+ Ranking: 21
SP+ Schedule Strength:
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): Mississippi State (49-30, 42nd)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Ole Miss (24-17, 52nd)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): Arkansas (31-27, 94th)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Clemson (24-10, 5th), vs. Auburn (28-20, 10th) vs. Alabama (47-28, 2nd)
Closest B1G Comparison: Iowa (20th)
Notes: The “quality losses” are doing a lot of heavy lifting here to get the Aggies into the top-25. Three of their five wins are against teams ranked below 90th in SP+.

Missouri

Record: 5-3
SP+ Ranking: 22
SP+ Schedule Strength:
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. South Carolina (34-14, 36th)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): Ole Miss (38-27, 52nd)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. West Virginia (38-7, 78th)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Wyoming (37-31, 74th), at Vanderbilt (21-14, 95th), at Kentucky (29-7, 54th)
Closest B1G Comparison: Indiana (23rd)
Notes: Mizzou is in the process of falling down a mineshaft right now, following back-to-back losses to Vanderbilt and Kentucky.

South Carolina

Record: 3-5
SP+ Ranking: 36
SP+ Schedule Strength:
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Georgia (20-17, 6th)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Kentucky (24-7, 54th)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Charleston Southern (72-10, Non-FBS)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): North Carolina (24-20, 50th), vs. Alabama (47-23, 2nd), at Missouri (34-14, 22nd), vs. Florida (38-27, 13th), at Tennessee (41-21, 46th)
Closest B1G Comparison: Between Michigan State (29th) and Nebraska (44th)
Notes: Extremely weird season. They’re heading into November with a road win over a top-10 team and also with an FCS team as their third-best victory.

Mississippi State

Record: 3-5
SP+ Ranking: 42
SP+ Schedule Strength:
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): Louisiana-Lafayette (38-28, 48th)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Kentucky (38-13, 54th)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Southern Miss (38-15, 89th)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Kansas State (31-24, 34th), at Auburn (56-23, 10th), at Tennessee (20-10, 46th), LSU (36-13, 3rd), at Texas A&M (49-30, 21st)
Closest B1G Comparison: Nebraska (44th)
Notes: That home loss to K-State looks a lot more respectable than it did a week ago.

Tennessee 

Record: 3-5
SP+ Ranking: 46
SP+ Schedule Strength:
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. South Carolina (41-21, 36th)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Mississippi State (20-10, 42nd)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Chattanooga (45-0, non-FBS)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Georgia State (38-30, 93rd), vs. BYU (29-26, 77th), at Florida (34-3, 13th), vs. Georgia (43-14, 6th), at Alabama (35-13, 2nd)
Closest B1G Comparison: Nebraska (44th)
Notes: With UAB, Kentucky, Missouri, and Vanderbilt still ahead, they could actually get bowl-eligible.

Ole Miss

Record: 3-5
SP+ Ranking: 53
SP+ Schedule Strength:
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Arkansas (31-17, 94th)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Vanderbilt (31-6, 95th)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Southeastern Louisiana (40-29, non-FBS)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Memphis (15-10, 19th), vs. Cal (28-20, 72nd), at Alabama (59-31, 2nd), at Missouri (38-27, 22nd), vs. Texas A&M (24-17, 21st)
Closest B1G Comparison: Purdue (55th), Maryland (56th)
Notes: It’s November, and the Rebels haven’t yet beaten one of the nation’s 90 best teams. Yikes. The Cal team they faced was better than the 72nd team in the nation before their quarterback got injured.

Kentucky

Record: 4-4
SP+ Ranking: 54
SP+ Schedule Strength:
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Missouri (29-7, 22nd)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Arkansas (24-20, 94th)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Toledo (38-24, 109th)
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Florida (29-21, 13th), at Mississippi State (28-13, 42nd), at South Carolina (24-7, 36th), at Georgia (21-0, 6th)
Closest B1G Comparison:  Purdue (55th), Maryland (56th)
Notes: Took a bit to find their footing after losing their starting QB, but have settled in. One win over a top-90 team, though.

Arkansas

Record: 2-6
SP+ Ranking: 94
SP+ Schedule Strength:
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Colorado State (55-34, 101st)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Portland State (20-13, non-FBS)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): N/A
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): at Ole Miss (31-17, 53rd), vs. San Jose State (31-24, 112th), Texas A&M (31-27, 21st), at Kentucky (24-20, 54th), vs. Auburn (51-10, 10th), at Alabama (48-7, 2nd)
Closest B1G Comparison: Northwestern (76th), Rutgers (104th)
Notes: Chad Morris has zero top-100 wins in this, his second season in Fayetteville.

Vanderbilt

Record:
SP+ Ranking: 95
SP+ Schedule Strength:
Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Missouri (21-14, 22nd)
Second-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Northern Illinois (24-18, 102nd)
Third-Best Win (team/margin/SP+ rank): N/A
Losses (team/margin/SP+ rank): vs. Georgia (30-6, 6th), at Purdue (42-24, 55th), vs. LSU (66-38, 3rd), at Ole Miss (31-6, 53rd), vs. UNLV (34-10, 118th)
Closest B1G Comparison: Northwestern (76th), Rutgers (104th)
Notes: Blowout loss to UNLV? Sure. Win over Missouri? Absolutely. Makes total sense.