Roads to the Playoff

Two complementary views of the playoff path. Easiest Roads sorts top-50 rosters by expected wins, so a team likely to grind out 10+ on a soft slate ranks above a contender whose tougher schedule trims it to 8. Hardest Roads filters to top-15 rosters and sorts by raw schedule difficulty. Ole Miss is the canonical case (roster #3, SOS rank #3, five top-13 opponents on the slate); the elite talent still keeps them in the playoff conversation, but no contender draws a rougher gauntlet. Records shown are the most likely actual finish; SOS rank: 1 = toughest, 136 = easiest.