There is a lot of talk swirling around college football about which conference is the best. The obvious choices for many fans are the SEC and the PAC-10. With California beating Tennessee in week 1, the PAC-10 wants recognition. Lets approach this dilema...
One easy way to compare conferences is to look at the rankings.
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USC is #1 in several polls. Does that give the PAC-10 the edge over other conferences?
The SEC has 6 ranked teams in the current polls. Clearly having half of your conference ranked in the top 25 gives you a boost in the conference rankings.
So which conference is #1? Neither the SEC nor the PAC-10.
Check out the non-conference winning percentages after week 2:
Big 12 75% (18-6)
Big East 87.5% (14-2)
Big 10 81.8% (18-4)
PAC-10 81.3% (13-3)
SEC 82.4% (14-3)
Clearly, the Big East has been the best confence this year...with 7/8 undefeated teams going in to week 3 (talk about top to bottom)! Each of these 5 conferences have at least 6 undefeated teams at the moment. So who is the Big East playing in week 3?
West Virginia @ Maryland Win 31-14
Cincinnati @ Miami (Ohio)
Pittsburgh @ Michigan State
Connecticut vs. Temple
South Florida...bye week
Louisville @ Kentucky
Rutgers vs. Norfolk St
Syracuse vs. Illinois (Illinois had one of the top recruiting classes)
I really don't see the Big East losing this week except for that last game. Then again...Ron Zook is an awful coach.
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11 months ago
I like the effort but it is really an apples to oranges issue at this point. Year2Florida has written a super article on conference comparisons and he can be found within my blogroll for college football on my website.
I am tiring of this topic for we will never know from season to season because the best within each of the conferences rarely get to square off head to head. I ran an article on the Big-East (which is most certainly a conference on the rise and I love the teams in this conference - especially if they added Army, Navy, E. Carolina and Appalachian State), but their non-conference scheduling is ridiculously easy this year, as a whole, compared to the SEC or PAC-10, with the Big-12 being a shade behind. I also ran an article based on a new evaluation tool where I run a reality check on teams to determine their success rate against opponents who have won nine or more games during the season they were scheduled (and I went back for the last three years only). The results were an eye-opener! Here was the results:
BCSBusters QOF-Ratings Top-25
1. USC (12-2) - .857
2. Boston College (6-2) - .750
3. Auburn (10-4) - .714
4. Texas (6-3) - .666
5. Boise State (6-3) - .666
6. LSU (7-6) - .538
7. Florida (8-7) - .533
8T. Georgia (7-7) - .500
8T. Virginia Tech (6-6) - .500
8T. Louisville (4-4) - .500
8T. Ohio State (5-5) - .500
8T. Michigan (6-6) - .500
9. Notre Dame (6-7) - .461
10. West Virginia (5-6) - .454
11. Rutgers (4-5) - .444
12. Wisconsin (3-4) - .428
13. Oklahoma (5-7) - .416
14. Miami (4-6) - .400
15. Wake Forest (4-7) - .363
16T. Clemson (3-6) - .333
16T. California (3-6) - .333
17. Georgia Tech (4-9) - .307
18. Arizona (4-9) - .307
19. Florida State (3-7) - .300
20T. Tennessee (4-10) - .285
20T. Houston (2-5) - .285
21. Iowa (3-8) - .272
22. UCLA (2-6) - .250
23. So. Florida (2-6) - .250
24. Oregon State (3-10) - .230
25T. Texas Tech (2-7) - .222
25T. Oklahoma State (2-7) - .222
26T. Maryland (2-8) - .200
26T. Washington State (2-8) - .200
27. South Carolina (2-10) - .166
28. Kentucky (2-12) - .142
29. Arkansas (2-13) - .133
Clearly the two dominant teams the last three years have been Auburn and USC when utilizing this criteria, but with such balance at the top among the elite teams, why can't we move forward with a regular season playoff so these teams can compete head to head?
8 months ago
What was that about Ron Zook? Hey, get a 2nd job before your 1st employer finds out that you have no idea what you are talking about. Dummy!
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