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John Bazemore/Associated Press

With national signing day squarely in the rearview mirror, college football officially enters the dark days, where fans only hope of sanity is to re-watch games recorded throughout the 2013 season.

If you failed to think ahead, you're stuck counting the hours until that first spring practice report, which always breeds optimism regardless of how a team is shaping up. Another offseason exercise is looking at the schedule and picking out which games you're most excited about.

Certain dates ought to be circled months in advance, because despite the goal of remaining on the couch all day long on each and every Saturday in the fall, commitments arise and it's important to know which weekends are off-limits.

As for your own team, odds are that you've at least taken a glance at the 2014 schedule. Ranking the 25 hardest requires educated guesses and inexact science, since we don't actually know how good every team is going to be. A road game at Florida looked pretty tricky last August, but then we saw Georgia Southern handle the very same task.

We all have an idea about which teams we think will be strong once again in 2014, and it's that idea that helps shape our list of the 25 most difficult schedules in college football. The Pac-12 and SEC both appear to be strong at the top and relatively deep, and the Big 12, ACC and Big Ten conferences all seem to be on the rise.

In short, there are very few easy schedules in college football these days. But from a starting point of about 40 teams, we've narrowed it down to the 25 who have the most difficult paths next season.

All schedules via fbschedules.com