Since I paid special attention to the Big Ten's scheduling issues last week, a couple assessments at ESPN this week caught my eye. Monday, blogger-at-large Bruce Feldman backed up his colleague, Mark Schlabach, by naming Northwestern and Penn State's non-conference schedules the two softest in the country, with Wisconsin rounding out his list at No. 10. Three SEC teams made Feldman's list, too, but not surprisingly, the Leader's Big Ten blogger, Adam Rittenberg, senses a double standard:

When I look at the nonleague slates of the Big Ten and the SEC, I don't see much difference. But the Big Ten seems to get bashed more in the scheduling debate because its power teams (Penn State, Michigan, Wisconsin) all scheduled easy for 2009, while Georgia beefed up its slate and Alabama opens with Virginia Tech.

That's very largely true: With the exception of Georgia's gambit with Oklahoma State, Arizona State and Georgia Tech, Big Ten non-conference schedules in general don't differ much from those in the SEC. The difference in a purely realpolitik sense is the perceived (key word there) strength of the entire schedules: The SEC is going to start the season with five teams in the top-15, meaning each one of those five contenders is virtually guaranteed to play at least three games against highly-ranked competition, not including games with wild card Tennessee and ACC rivals (Alabama's opener with Virginia Tech can be grouped in the latter category), and in turn, each of those opponents will have three or four games against highly-ranked competition itself. Then one of them will add another valuable win in the conference championship game.

The Big Ten, though, only has two teams in the top-20 to start the season, Ohio State and Penn State, and outside of each other, the only game either plays against another team likely to start in the top-20 is Ohio State's date with USC. Beyond the Trojans, the best non-conference opponents on any Big Ten competitor's schedule (Notre Dame, Cincinnati, Missouri) are considered fringe poll teams at best. So there's a very good chance the winner of the Big Ten, even if it's not the Buckeyes or Lions, will only have one really impressive win on its schedule, two at most. And unless one of those is Southern Cal, that MVV (Most Valuable Victim) isn't likely to have more than one really impressive win itself. And so on. Without any big non-conference wins, the perceived mediocrity of the league can only perpetuate itself.

I think it goes without saying that polls -- especially preseason polls -- are not reality. But it also goes without saying that the rankings have their own internal logic, and in Poll World, perception is reality. The early perception is that, thanks to attrition, there aren't any serious national championship contenders in the Big Ten this year. Ohio State can dramatically alter that perception by beating Southern Cal. But if the Big Ten is considered a two-horse league -- and clearly it is until further notice -- and the only horse on either one's resumé is the other one, the scheduling issue is going to linger well into the season. That's why the Buckeyes' date with USC is such a screaming big deal for the conference.

For the record, if Penn State runs the table, this probably won't be an issue unless there are two other major, undefeated teams at the end of the year (see Auburn and its fatally lame non-conference slate when the Tigers were snubbed by the title game in 2004), which is highly unlikely -- only one "Big Six" team, Ohio State in 2006, has entered the bowl season undefeated in the last three years. And, as Rittenberg points out, PSU's not likely to be such an easy target for cupcake haters in the future: The Lions have a home-and-home with Alabama in 2010-11 and have been rumored to be talking to Miami. Ohio State's schedule for the next decade already includes Miami, California, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Obviously, they're getting the point.