2011 College Football: Colorado Has Toughest Schedule?

The University of Colorado Buffaloes appear to have jumped out of the frying pan into the fire in their move to the Pac-12 from the Big 12 Conference.

This is according to a recent strength of schedule projection by Phil Steele.  The top 10 toughest college football schedules rank as the following:

1. Colorado
2. Iowa State
3. Baylor
4. Oregon State
5. LSU
6. Boston College
7. USC
8. Washington
9. Auburn
10. Miami (FL)

Colorado's 2011 schedule includes away games at Hawaii, Ohio State, Stanford, Washington, Arizona State, UCLA, and Utah.  Their home games include California, Washington State, Oregon, USC, and Arizona. There is also the big rival in-state game to be played in Denver against Colorado State.

These rankings were developed by Steele taking into account not just opponents' 2010 win/loss records but a series of other factors (including amount of road:home games the team has, playing against FCS schools, etc).   

Note that there are four Pac-12 teams in the top 10.  No other conference has more than two.