ASU football to face toughest 2026 schedule among Big 12 teams, per ESPN metrics

Arizona State football isn’t taking any sort of easy road with its schedule this fall, even when considering who the opponents are without the context of how the schedule is laid out.

The Sun Devils will face the Big 12’s toughest schedule, according to ESPN’s strength of schedule metric. The slate ranks 30th nationally and top five when excluding the SEC (which accounts for 14 of the 15 toughest) and Big Ten.

Looking across the conference’s premiere matchups outside of league play, ASU’s Week 2 bout against 2025 College Football Playoff participant Texas A&M in College Station is arguably the toughest among them. The only other matchup in the same category of difficulty is Oklahoma State hosting the Oregon Ducks.

ASU’s road trip will continue straight on from Texas, as it will then head to London and spend the week there ahead of the Union Jack Classic against Kansas, which will count in the conference standings.

As we saw in last year’s Dublin, Ireland matchup between Iowa State and Kansas State, international games can quickly turn sloppy and become wild cards. That will be a tough game to deal with even before looking at what the Jayhawks have to offer, no longer led by longtime QB Jalon Daniels.

The Sun Devils’ only bye week of the season comes as they travel back to the states, giving them nine straight weeks of football to end the regular season. It would be 10 straight weeks if they make the conference title game.

It’s a very different structure from the 2024 and 2025 slates, which each had two bye weeks that broke up the seasons into roughly equal parts.

As far as Big 12 games beyond Kansas in London, ASU will see all the projected contenders besides Utah and Houston.

It will face conference favorite Texas Tech, as well as BYU and Arizona on the road, while a trip to UCF is no easy task either when factoring in cross-country travel. The home matchup providing the biggest reprieve comes against Colorado, while others include Baylor, Kansas State and Oregon State.

If there’s a good part about the schedule for ASU, it’s that the big early-season road trip is the only time all season with back-to-back road matchups. Baylor and Hawaii in the two games that follow mark the only back-to-back home games before getting on an alternating routine the rest of the way.

The Texas A&M matchup comes after a home opener against Morgan State, which provides its own sneaky threat likely led by quarterback Cameron Edge, who began his college career at Maryland and was the No. 32 signal caller in the 2022 class, per 247 Sports’ composite ranking.

Arizona’s schedule middle of pack in Big 12 difficulty, Texas Tech ranks last

The Arizona Wildcats’ schedule ranks eighth among the 16 Big 12 teams and 53rd nationally in ESPN’s breakdown.

Their nonconference slate includes home games against Northern Arizona and Northern Illinois, as well as a familiar road trip to Pullman to face Washington State.

Arizona will see conference heavyweights Texas Tech, Utah and BYU, with the matchup against the Cougars coming early in Week 2 and pitting two of the conference’s best quarterbacks — Noah Fifita and Bear Bachmeier — against each other.

But the Wildcats also benefit from seeing some of the programs expected to finish near the bottom, including Iowa State, West Virginia and Cincinnati.

Texas Tech will face the easiest schedule in the conference (71st nationally), as its metrics are hurt by not being able to face itself. The Red Raiders’ FPI slotting (10th, while 20th-ranked BYU is the only other in the Big 12 that’s top 30) does a lot to help the resumes of other teams in the conference, but it can’t help its own.

Texas Tech’s schedule does not include a conference title rematch against BYU or against Utah (ranked third in the conference by FPI), which also hurts the metrics.

Its nonconference foes are Abilene Christian, Oregon State and Sam Houston, while its toughest road games in conference are Oklahoma State and Baylor. It will get all of Houston, ASU and Arizona at home.

The Red Raiders have the talent to go 12-0 against a schedule like that, even without QB Brendan Sorsby in the picture.

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