Here is our schedule with last year's S&P+ and FEI rankings (Offense S&P+/Offense FEI ||| Defense S&P+/Defense FEI)

Arizona (8/10 ||| 115/113)
Cal (84/92 ||| 79/56)
Wisconsin (41/24 ||| 3/3)
McNeese St (N/A)
Washington (18/9 ||| 6/10)
Utah State (78/112 ||| 42/38)
Hawaii (89/103 ||| 124/129)
Northern Illinois (104/101 ||| 14/26)
Boise State (40/33 ||| 30/36)
UMass (66/87 ||| 81/85)
New Mexico State (50/85 ||| 69/89)
Utah (55/89 ||| 34/29)

A few points:

1) Our QBs will not be running some sort of horrible gauntlet this season, definitely not to start the year. We do face two elite defenses, and both are somewhat early, but whoever the guy is, he won't really be thrown into the fire.

2) This isn't a totally front-loaded schedule. There is quality throughout, and probably few truly terrible teams. Even New Mexico State and UMass weren't terrible last year: their F/+ combined rankings were in the 80s, right in the neighborhood of Cal, Virginia, Florida, Kentucky, Colorado, Vandy, Arkansas, and Minnesota.

3) We do have a couple of cases where our opponent is good or very good on one side of the ball and mediocre or bad on the other. Under Bronco, I would have liked our chances in most of those games, because our defense was mostly good at managing points. But last year has me lacking confidence in these scenarios. If you look at Wisconsin's offense last year, they were good, maybe even very good. But we made them look like Montana's 49ers. Just no clue how to stop them. And we all know how incompetent our offense was. So games like Cal, Utah State, and Northern Illinois become question marks, where they should be solid wins.

4) This schedule should provide a good referendum on both sides of the ball. With very few exceptions, an improved defense should be able to keep us within striking distance of our opponents, and a competent offense should be able to move the ball and put points on the board. Statistically, close games are basically toss-ups, so it is possible that we could improve on both sides of the ball and still only win 5 games. So the final record won't necessarily tell us everything, but if we dig into the numbers over the course of the year, we should have a good idea whether and how much we have improved.

Ultimately, I think there are two main takeaways. First, what I said about the QBs needs to be reiterated. It is a myth that our QB is going to face a tough road and that therefore mental issues or inexperience should be any more instrumental in the coaches' decision on a starter than they should be any other year. Secondly, this schedule is only tough because our team wasn't very good last year. This would not be a tough schedule for the 2006-2009 teams or even the 2015 and 2016 groups.