Strength of schedule has become more important than ever before in college football. With the College Football Playoff Selection Committee choosing four teams to compete for the national title every season, it's not just important to win as many games as possible, you want to beat the best teams to help boost your resume.

This is why we've seen Power Five teams scheduling more Power Five opponents in nonconference play over recent seasons. Some conferences, like the Big Ten, have even adopted policies stating that they don't want their schools scheduling any more games against FCS school. And then there are conferences like the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Big 12 that have moved to nine-game conference schedules rather than the traditional eight.

And they've done all of this in an effort to improve their strength of schedule in order to help ensure that their best teams have strong resumes worth considering for the CFP at the end of the season.

It's with all of this in mind that I wanted to figure out which teams were playing the toughest schedules in 2017 before the season even started. I went through each Power Five team's 2017 schedule and rated teams based upon how they've performed in my own personal rankings -- the same mathematical rankings I use to compile the Fornelli 50 and Bottom 25 -- over the last three years. This gave me a baseline, which I then tinkered with a bit.

It's one thing to play Alabama, but are you playing them in Tuscaloosa? At a neutral site? Are you coming off a bye?

These are all variables I considered and weighted. Road games are always more difficult, and having to play a team without having a Saturday off for the last month can wear on your team as well.

As no formula is perfect -- teams always surprise you, whether it's by exceeding expectations or failing to meet them -- I averaged each teams' individual ranking based on the last three years rather than just last season. This should give us a good idea of what to expect each team will be facing in the 2017 season.

Here's how things break down for the Big 12 in 2017, from most to least difficult.

Big 12 strength of schedule