Yet again, Michigan State is considered to have one of the toughest schedules in all of college football.
The Spartans’ 2025 schedule may lack the numerous auto-losses we saw last year (i.e. Ohio State and Oregon back-to-back), but it’s still considered one of the hardest slates in America. According to Kelley Ford (who puts together the popular KFord ratings), Michigan State has a top 20 schedule in his difficulty ratings.
In the KFord official preseason schedule difficulty rankings, Michigan State comes in at No. 18. Among Big Ten teams, this ranks behind only four teams: Wisconsin (No. 6), Purdue (No. 11), UCLA (No. 13) and Northwestern (No. 16).
In the KFord ratings system, Ford has noted that No. 12 power-rated team would win 8.3 games against the Spartans slate. So essentially a fringe College Football Playoff caliber of team would have a hard team going better than 8-4 with the Michigan State 2025 schedule. That’s pretty alarming for the Spartans, who are much closer to being a fringe bowl team than a College Football Playoff team.
The Spartans’ schedule features numerous tough games, including road trips to USC, Nebraska, Indiana and Iowa. Additionally, the Spartans play host to Michigan and Penn State, who are both preseason top 25 teams.
Check out the complete Ford schedule difficulty rankings in the post below:
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This article originally appeared on Spartans Wire: Michigan State football’s schedule ranked among the toughest in college football
Reporting by Robert Bondy, Spartans Wire / Spartans Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
