They always dramatically over state the difference in conference strength. I pulled down the Massey composite rankings:
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So there's a couple ways of looking at this. In general, the Big 12 as a whole has a higher average team ranking than the Big 10 West. But what's probably more fair is that by virtue of easy 2021 crossovers, Iowa's 2021 schedule was pretty easy - Penn State is the 4th best East team, and they got the two worst East teams.
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So all in all, that's true. But they always ignore what those same rankings say about *them*. Currently Iowa is playing 1 team better than them, 8 teams worse. ISU is playing 3 teams better than them, 6 teams worse.
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But if Iowa and ISU were to swap places, they wouldn't just swap
relative ease of schedule. Iowa in the Big 12 would play 3 teams better than them, 6 teams worse as ISU does this year. But Iowa State would
still have to play 3 teams that are better than them, because Iowa State is not that good.
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TLDR: Yeah Iowa had an easier conference schedule than ISU in 2021, but Iowa State fans don't realize that one of the things that makes their schedule seem harder is that
they have to play it.