This is flat-out wrong. Just taking the Sports Reference rankings as an example, it’s point differential-based. Based on the point differentials in our games (and those of our opponents), we finished with a rating of 19.6 (19.6 points better than the average FBS team). The teams you mentioned are rated:
UT: 19.30
AL: 15.33
IL: 10.63
BSU: 10.50
If you dig into how their rating is calculated, UT and BSU both outscored their opponents by an average of about 12 points. But UT’s rating gets adjusted up 7 points because of their SOS (average rating of their opponents), while BSU gets adjusted down by 2 because of theirs.
So you’re wrong with your “a win over Boise State counts the same as a win over Texas” claim. Texas would be considered a ~9-pt favorite over Boise in this particular rating system.
Getting back to the original argument, you claimed 2024 was our easiest schedule since joining the Big Ten by a wide margin.
Here you can see PSU’s 131-season history sorted high to low by Sports Reference’s SOS measure:
Check out the Penn State Nittany Lions College Football History, Stats, Records, Polls, Bowls and More College Football Stats at Sports-Reference.com
www.sports-reference.com
2024 comes in as our 14th-hardest schedule all-time and 3rd-hardest since joining the Big Ten. Considering we played the 1, 2, and 3 teams in the final AP poll along with 3 others in the top 16, that seems reasonable to me.
If you want to point out flaws in how they calculate SOS, go ahead. The methodology is discussed here:
It would help if you gave something to back up your claims. “Because I said so” isn’t very convincing.