We consistently hear that the body of work put forth by TCU and Baylor are much more impressive than anything a B1G team is able to match.  Ohio State, Nebraska, and Michigan State (prior to dropping out of the conversation completely after the loss on Saturday) were said to have played an inferior schedule in an inferior league.  This perception is seen as fact across the country - it has become the reality B1G teams cannot overcome.

This idea of conference strength is bandied about as if it's relevance is paramount.  If your conference schedule, week in and week out is, is tougher than others, you should get credit for that.  I have no issue with this.  What I do have an issue with is taking one specific talking point (strength of the Big 12 in relation to the B1G), and crafting an argument for or against a certain team based on inaccurate information.  Right now, this is happening and it is wrong.

Some may (or may not) be familiar with the Football Outsiders +/- efficiency rankings (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/fplus).  It is a ranking of each FBS school based on a combination of S&P and FEI, two statistical approaches to equate how efficient each team is based on strength of opponent, down and distance, game situation, while filtering out garbage time plays or clock-killing drives.  This is basically football's version of the Ken Pomeroy rankings for college basketball.  To be fair, no ranking system is perfect.  However, these ratings are based purely on what happens on the field each and every play, and this is a completely unbiased system.  For a baseline, the S&P ranks Ohio State 2nd, while the FEI ranks OSU 14th.  The combined +/- rankings have OSU at #3.  TCU and Baylor are #7 and #8 in the +/- rankings.

With that said, I have found myself with too much time on my hands, so I decided to take a look at the different conferences' average rankings, and a few specific teams' strength of schedules based on the +/- ratings.  Sorry in advance for all the data - if you're not into statistics, just skip to the end..

Conference rankings, on average (lower = better):
SEC: 33.9
ACC: 37.6
Pac 12: 41.1
B1G: 46.6
Big 12: 46.7

Conference ratings, on average (higher = better):
SEC: 14.9%
ACC: 11.8%
Pac 12: 10.3%
Big 12: 8.6%
B1G: 7.2%

Interesting to note that the ACC is actually looked at quite strongly in regard to the efficiency metrics.  Just to display that no system is perfect, Virginia Tech is actually ranked 28th in the +/- ratings.  The Big 12 - perceived to be possibly the 2nd/3rd best Power 5 conference - comes right in line with the B1G.

Now, let's look at Ohio State, TCU, and Baylor in more detail.  First, let's look at strength of schedule for each team, based on the average opponent rating.  Each team, except for OSU, played an FCS school.    Those FCS schools do not have an efficiency rating, so I made them equal to the last placed FBS team, SMU.  Ironically, TCU and Baylor both played SMU in the non-conference.

Ohio State and TCU have almost the exact same strength of schedule to this point in the season, with OSU's slightly tougher based on rating. 
Average opponent ranking = OSU 57.0/TCU 56.9/Baylor 73.2
Average opponent rating = OSU 2.10%/TCU 2.03%/Baylor -4.91%

The committee talks about "who have you beaten" and that is an interesting discussion as well.

Wins - Average opponent ranking/rating:
Ohio State = 60.6/0.53%
TCU = 63.0/0.71%
Baylor = 79.00/-1.03%

What about an extrapolation of strength of schedule for the remainder of the season?  Another good question.  The Big 12 does not have a championship game, so I looked at only the remaining regular season games as well as a possible additional B1G title game opponent.

Regular season - Average opponent ranking/rating:
OSU: 57.0/1.96%
TCU: 62.5/-0.43%
Baylor: 69.6/-3.18%
Assuming OSU beats 1-loss Nebraska in the title game, OSU's averages become 53.7 and 3.59%.
Assuming OSU beats 2-loss Wisconsin in the game, their averages become 54.1 and 3.46%.

Last, let's assume all three teams win out and compare only the strength of each teams' wins against each other.

Regular season wins - Average opponent ranking/rating:
OSU: 59.6/0.80%
TCU: 67.5/-1.61%
Baylor: 73.5/-0.20%
Assuming OSU beats 1-loss Nebraska in the title game, OSU's averages become 55.8 and 2.67%.
Assuming OSU beats 2-loss Wisconsin in the game, their averages become 56.3 and 2.53%.

So, with all that long-winded soliloquy and brain-busting data (sorry again), any way you want to look at this from an unbiased perspective, TCU and Baylor have not put forth a stronger resume to this point, and they will not have a stronger resume than Ohio State as a 1-loss team.  In fact, with all the data I have pieced together, Ohio State playing Nebraska or Wisconsin in the B1G title game will more than likely enhance the Buckeyes' strength of schedule even more than what I have indicated, b ased on the fact Nebraska or Wisconsin should look even stronger by that point.  Either way, the house of cards that is the perceived strength of the Big 12, and most importantly TCU/Baylor, needs to fall and do so quickly.