I'm not sure about your definition of "brutal". 3 of our first 4 opponents had losing records last year.
Yeah our FPI chance of winning each of our first seven games is 77%, 83%, 76%, 98%, 56%, 96%, 61%. We're an underdog a total of zero times and only two of them are particularly close. And this if from SECSPN.
A lot of people like to talk up how hard our schedule is but this ain't the year to do it. We only have the 61st toughest schedule in the nation according to Phil Steele.
There is not a true "break" in the first seven games aside from UMass.
Notre Dame is favored and should win them all, but it's not going to be as simple as FPI makes it seem.
Texas is a Charlie Strong defense. They are thin and bad on offense, but this is not a breeze-through game either (though I hope it turns out to be).
Virginia scares me because it's a classic mediocre opponent that's got a few 5-star guys here and there that could put it together and get up for their game against mighty ND.
Georgia Tech is Navy on steroids. That's frightening.
UMass is a glorified bye, which is nice.
Clemson is a good football team, but a bit young and unproven in places. They could be very good, or they could still be struggling to get their feet under them in week 5. However, the timing of this game is where the biggest difficulty comes from.
Navy is Navy, AND you have to play them after a night game at Clemson? We should beat them down like we did in '11 and '12, but the memories of '13 and '14 haunt me. Plus, it's the perfect "trap" setup between Clemson and USC.
USC after Navy? The most difficult game on the schedule just got even more difficult lol.
Impossible to manage? No. But I stand by my "brutal" descriptor, especially when considering the Clemson-Navy-USC stretch of games.