Marc Morehouse of The Gazette retweeted the following item on Thursday, and it put me in a bad mood:

2016 easiest Power 5 CFB Schedules according to ESPN's FPI: 1. Minnesota

2. Michigan

3. Purdue

4. Maryland

5. Nebraska — Cole Cubelic (@colecubelic) April 7, 2016

I was just in the middle of eating my lunch, watching The Masters on my computer, and I had to deal with an FPI tweet dogging the Big Ten before spring football has even come to an end.

Let me cut right to it; I am calling bull poop on this.

I went into their FPI rankings, which ESPN created themselves (garbage in, garbage out) and they have 10 Big Ten teams listed among the 14 weakest schedules.

Guess who they have with eight of the top 16 toughest schedules? Yup, the SEC.

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Being that Big Ten teams are playing one another nine times out of their 12 regular season games this year, or 75%, ESPN is basically building in a bias against Big Ten programs.

They can claim innocence or all of that garbage, but we’re not even to the midway point of April, and this is what the computer is putting out.

Computers do what they are told, and what ESPN is telling these computers is to devalue the Big Ten. There is a more nuanced way for me to say that, but I’d rather not beat around the bush.

ESPN is in bed with the SEC, and that’s just fine. They are television partners and the SEC Network is a fantastic property and at the head of its class. I respect the Big Ten Network a great deal and they have had an historic launch pursuant to start up cable networks and it’s still one of thrills of my career that I was able to be a part of that network. Yet I have to call a spade a spade; the SEC Network is sensational.

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That said, at least ESPN can make an attempt to pretend to not be biased. Here is the coupe de grace; Wisconsin.

The Badgers play LSU (maybe the most talented team in the nation) on a neutral site, with road games at Michigan State, Michigan and Iowa plus home games against Ohio State and Nebraska. All six of those teams figure to be ranked in the preseason Top 25 (at least five depending on what you think about Nebraska), with three of them being in most top ten’s. Throw a road game at Northwestern into the mix (the Wildcats won 10 games last year) and you have an insanely difficult schedule.

Or so you’d think; the FPI ranks it 38th.

Or how about ESPN’s FPI arnking Syracuse’s schedule 10th? They play four preseason Top 25 teams according to ESPN College Football Analyst Mark Schlabach’s early Top 25. Wisconsin plays FIVE team’s in Schlabauch’s Top 16

Maybe I should thank them for just coming right out with something so stark and apologetically biased without hiding behind some tripe comment about objectivity. Then again, I am sure someone from the World Wide Bleeder.

Other than Chris Hassel and Baseball Tonight, I only watch ESPN for games. The rest of what they air is nearly unwatchable to me. That said, they are powerful and they can help establish narratives, like they did last year pursuant to Iowa’s football team and its schedule at a time when Iowa had played a schedule that was just as favorable as the other teams receiving Top 10 consideration for the CFP. And like this, from Thursday:

More from @ESPNStatsInfo – 5 toughest skeds: USC, OleMiss, FSU, Cal, Alabama. 5 easiest Power5 skeds ALL Big10: MINN,MICH,PUR,MD,NEB. — Chris Fowler (@cbfowler) April 7, 2016

So ESPN, you can take this garbage and stick it in Paul Finebaum’s desk drawer, because I’m not buying it.