Lashlee doesn't understand how strength of schedule can be a thing when nobody has played a game yet.
Preseason predictions are what make the college football world go around at this time of year, but SMU head coach Rhett Lashlee doesn't get it.
With several teams deemed to have the "toughest schedules" in college football in August, many struggle to see how that can be a thing when no one has even played a game yet.
At this stage of the season, we don't know who will be good and who won't be.
Yes, we have an idea, but the landscape can change so quickly that one team we thought would be good might not be in the space of a couple of weeks.
And it is here that Lashlee doesn't understand how strength-of-schedule predictions can be a thing.
Lashlee, in speaking with On3, discussed this exact thing, and he gave his thoughts on whether he knows if his own team is any good at this stage of the season.
"Nobody truly knows, right? And that would have been the way it was 10 years ago, but now in this world of transfer portal and all the roster turnover at a different level, every team, it just changes quicker than it used to,” Lashlee said. “Everybody does so much to create excitement and generate, predictions and all that stuff's awesome. It's what makes our game fun and great.
"But when we start crossing over into strength of schedule, things that are going to determine who gets in the playoffs, and we want to say we know these 20 teams have the hardest strength of schedule, it's impossible.
“No offense to Arkansas, they can't have the hardest strength of schedule in America to start the season because no one's played a game. We don't even know who's good."
And he has a point.
Lashlee would add that if the people who make these predictions came out and said the strength of schedule is based on last year, then fine. But they don't.
So while the likes of Michigan, Arkansas, and Texas loom as the ones who will have the hardest schedule in 2026, at this stage of the season, we truly have no idea, as there is a team each year that pops up and is good when we don't expect them to be.
In truth, I think the strength of schedule is actually based on last year's results, and SMU doesn't crack the top 10 for USA Today, so Lashlee's team is in good shape there.
But again, right now, we don't know who is good and who isn't. We'll only know once football starts to be played.
