Ranking Every College Football Conference Post-2015-16 Bowl Season
Monday night's epic College Football Playoff National Championship capped a strong postseason for the SEC and a year of shifting power across the top conferences.
With the offseason officially underway, the age-old debate of the pecking order among college football conferences can return to full power. SEC fans will point to the league's return to the national championship, while others will focus on the struggles the conference had during the regular season.
But which league proved the most on the field in 2015? Here are Bleacher Report's latest college football conference rankings.
These rankings are based on the leagues' top-to-bottom strength—the number of ranked teams in B/R's final Top 25 compared to the number of teams that stayed at home this postseason—and how they fared against other top conferences.
Of course, this might not be everyone's method to sorting through the madness that is conference power ranking. Give us your personal rankings in the comments below.
10. Sun Belt
1 of 10
B/R Final Top 25 Teams: 0
Non-Bowl Teams: 7 (South Alabama, Troy, New Mexico State, Idaho, UL-Lafayette, Texas State, UL-Monroe)
Record vs. Power Five: 0-19 (0-0 in bowls)
Three Sun Belt teams were bowl-eligible last season but weren't invited to the postseason. This year, when bowl games would've taken anyone with a record of .500 or better, the Sun Belt could only offer four teams.
It was that kind of year for the Sun Belt, which didn't record a single win over a Power Five team in 2015. Only three teams finished with winning records—the expected top trio of Arkansas State, Georgia Southern and Appalachian State.
The Red Wolves won the conference, while the Eagles and Mountaineers tasted victory in their first bowl appearances as full FBS members. Former doormat Georgia State was the surprise of the season, winning its last four regular-season games to become bowl-eligible for the first time in its young history.
Elsewhere, though, several programs fell short of their usual form. UL-Lafayette and South Alabama stumbled from winning seasons to losing ones, and Texas State went 3-9 after a 7-5 campaign in 2014.
Troy, New Mexico State and Idaho showed signs for optimism, and the league has enough strength to rebound in 2016. But this season, the "Fun Belt" was only fun for a few.
9. Conference USA
2 of 10
B/R Final Top 25 Teams: 1 (No. 25 Western Kentucky)
Non-Bowl Teams: 8 (FAU, FIU, Old Dominion, Charlotte, UTSA, Rice, UTEP, North Texas)
Record vs. Power Five: 2-22 (0-1 in bowls)
Before the season began, I wrote that Conference USA was "one of the more top-heavy conferences in the country." That somehow looks like an understatement after the year the C-USA had in 2015.
Western Kentucky, the league champion, had one of the nation's best offenses and only lost to a pair of Power Five teams during the regular season. Southern Miss took a huge leap forward in order to win the C-USA West, Louisiana Tech had a strong nine-win campaign and Marshall grabbed double-digit victories for a third straight year.
Outside of seven-win MTSU, though, the rest of the teams anchor the C-USA down in these rankings. More than half of the conference had losing seasons, and four teams came nowhere close to bowl-eligibility. Charlotte lost its last 10 games. North Texas was blown out by an FCS school.
The league didn't have much success against Power Five competition, either, with Vanderbilt (via Western Kentucky) and Purdue (via Marshall) becoming the only victims of 2015.
In order for the C-USA to move ahead in terms of overall conference power, it needs its top teams to get over the hump of New Year's Six contention and its middle tier to get over the hump of bowl-eligibility.
8. Mountain West
3 of 10
B/R Final Top 25 Teams: 0
Non-Bowl Teams: 4* (Wyoming, Fresno State, UNLV, Hawaii)
Record vs. Power Five: 3-21 (0-2 in bowls)
*San Jose State went to a bowl as a 5-7 team
A down year for Boise State turned out to be a down year for most of the Mountain West. The league got off to a dreadful start in nonconference play, and Boise had two of the league's three wins against Power Five competition.
The Broncos didn't win the league this time around, though, as they faded down the stretch against a rising New Mexico program and a tough Air Force team. A 55-7 trouncing of Northern Illinois in bowl season should give Boise State enough of a boost for a rebound in 2016.
San Diego State won the conference and hammered Cincinnati in the Hawaii Bowl, but even the Aztecs weren't prone to disappointment—they lost at home to a South Alabama team that didn't make a bowl game. The new Arizona Bowl was an all-Mountain West affair between Nevada and Colorado State, although that didn't make many happy.
San Jose State were fortunate enough to make a bowl game with a 5-7 record, beating Georgia State in the first Cure Bowl. The bottom of the MWC was rough, with none of the four bowl-less teams recording more than three wins.
Some MWC schools built up momentum for the future in 2015, but the conference as a whole fell flat compared to its preseason expectations.
7. MAC
4 of 10
B/R Final Top 25 Teams: 0
Non-Bowl Teams: 6 (Buffalo, Kent State, Miami-Ohio, UMass, Ball State, Eastern Michigan)
Record vs. Power Five: 4-20 (0-1 in bowls)
The MAC took steps forward in 2015 after a down 2014 season. The league had two fewer teams sitting at home in the postseason than the previous year, and the top two teams in the conference had tremendous regular seasons.
MAC champion Bowling Green knocked off a pair of Big Ten teams—Maryland and Purdue—and hung tough with both Tennessee and Memphis. The Falcons had a letdown after head coach Dino Babers left for Syracuse, though, as Georgia Southern ran away with the GoDaddy Bowl.
While Toledo couldn't win its division, it defeated Arkansas and Iowa State early in the season and made a strong run into the Top 25. #MACtion got the best of the Rockets down the stretch, but they rebounded to win their big bowl matchup with Temple under new head coach Jason Candle.
Akron took home its first-ever bowl victory by defeating Utah State to end a strong 2015, and Frank Solich took his Ohio team bowling again. Buffalo flirted with bowl-eligibility as well under first-year head coach Lance Leipold, while struggling Eastern Michigan was the only MAC team not to win multiple conference games.
How Bowling Green and Toledo reload after losing their successful coaches will be important to the league's overall strength in 2016, but there are plenty of other exciting teams that could pick up their slack.
6. American
5 of 10
B/R Final Top 25 Teams: 2 (No. 10 Houston, No. 16 Navy)
Non-Bowl Teams: 4 (ECU, Tulane, SMU, UCF)
Record vs. Power Five: 12-15 (2-2 in bowls)
No conference had a better regular season than college football's youngest—the American Athletic Conference. Rising from the ashes of the former Big East, the AAC adjusted well to life with a title game and had a handful of contenders for a coveted New Year's Six bowl spot.
Houston, led by first-year coach Tom Herman, took both of those games for the AAC. The Cougars' Peach Bowl victory over Florida State capped a 13-1 season and gave the program tremendous momentum for the near future.
But Herman's team wasn't the only one grabbing national attention out of the AAC in 2015. Memphis knocked off Ole Miss and produced Paxton Lynch, a first-round NFL draft prospect. Navy captured its first 11-win season behind Keenan Reynolds and a victory over Pittsburgh in bowl season. Temple upset Penn State, kept it close with Notre Dame and won its division behind stifling defense.
A disappointing bowl record—2-6, with Houston and Navy grabbing the only victories—took some of the wind out of the league's sails, along with UCF's unexpected nosedive to 0-12. However, Tulsa, UConn (which handed Houston its only loss of the season) and USF each made it to bowl games after posting losing records in 2014, showing some real overall strength for the conference.
The top spot in the Group of Five conferences is on lockdown after a season to remember from the AAC. The league will continue to fight for respect and shrink the gap between itself and the power conferences in the coming seasons.
5. ACC
6 of 10
B/R Final Top 25 Teams: 3 (No. 2 Clemson, No. 14 Florida State, No. 15 North Carolina)
Non-Bowl Teams: 5 (Syracuse, Wake Forest, Boston College, Virginia, Georgia Tech)
Record vs. Power Five: 9-13 (3-4 in bowls)
The ACC definitely gained more respect this season thanks to Clemson, the nation's only undefeated team in the regular season and the No. 1 seed in the College Football Playoff.
But outside of the Tigers' big season, the ACC didn't have a lot of firepower to bring to the great conference debates. It had a losing record against Power Five foes in the regular season before splitting its bowl matchups.
Florida State and Pittsburgh lost to AAC teams while division champion North Carolina allowed a record-breaking amount of rushing yardage in a loss to Baylor. More than a third of the league wasn't even bowl-eligible, with Georgia Tech taking a huge fall from its Orange Bowl heights of 2014.
However, the ACC has plenty of potential to surge forward in rankings such as these in the future. Clemson and Florida State should be perennial playoff contenders, and the league's middle tier took a step forward this fall.
The hires of Mark Richt (Miami), Justin Fuente (Virginia Tech), Bronco Mendenhall (Virginia) and Dino Babers (Syracuse) were huge boosts for the league in what was a wild coaching carousel. No longer known just as a top-heavy conference that produces a lot of pro talent, the ACC has a bright future.
4. Pac-12
7 of 10
B/R Final Top 25 Teams: 3 (No. 4 Stanford, No. 17 Oregon, No. 21 Utah)
Non-Bowl Teams: 2 (Oregon State and Colorado)
Record vs. Power Five: 6-8 (2-4 in bowls)
One of the Pac-12's calling cards heading into the season was its top-to-bottom strength. The league showed that in 2015—a strong campaign despite the fact its two-loss champion was shut out of the College Football Playoff.
Stanford made some playoff contenders sweat at the end of the season, and the Christian McCaffrey-led Cardinal flexed their muscles by routing a strong Iowa team at the Rose Bowl. Only two of the league's teams weren't a part of bowl season—the lowest percentage of any conference.
However, the Pac-12's record against Power Five competition wasn't fantastic in the regular season, and it dipped in the postseason as well. It went 2-4 against power-conference teams in bowl games, with Stanford and Washington State having to carry the flag for the West Coast.
"The Cardinal dominated in the Rose Bowl, but the conference's bowl performance overall was spotty at best," Gary Klein of the Los Angeles Times wrote. "After a fast start, Pac-12 teams finished 6-4 in bowl games, with conference heavyweights Oregon, USC and UCLA all losing."
The overall quality of the Pac-12 should produce some tough conference champions in future College Football Playoff races. However, the league could benefit by stepping it up more when it squares off against power-conference competition.
3. Big 12
8 of 10
B/R Final Top 25 Teams: 4 (No. 5 Oklahoma, No. 8 TCU, No. 13 Baylor, No. 19 Oklahoma State)
Non-Bowl Teams: 3 (Texas, Iowa State, Kansas)
Record vs. Power Five: 7-7 (3-4 in bowls)
Shut out of the College Football Playoff last season, the Big 12 had a chance to reclaim some respect on the national stage when a red-hot Oklahoma team made it to the bracket this time around.
And while Oklahoma's 37-17 loss to Clemson at the Orange Bowl was a tough pill to swallow for the Big 12, the rest of the conference had a mixed bag of a bowl season to complete 2015.
"Not only did the Big 12 not fare well record-wise, the conference’s supposed strength (explosive offense) didn't show up, either," Brandon Chatmon of ESPN.com wrote. "That wouldn’t have mattered too much if the Big 12 had finished with a winning record—but it did not, and the conference’s opportunity to change its national reputation fell by the wayside."
Baylor and TCU, which fell out of national title contention through injuries and rough late-season stretches, ended their seasons with two very different exclamation points against North Carolina and Oregon, respectively. They should reload and have a fierce race with Oklahoma in 2016.
The Big 12 fared better against Power Five competition than both the Pac-12 and the ACC, but the league missed out on some opportunities to rise even higher in bowl season. Right now, the Big 12 is behind the Big Ten and the SEC.
2. Big Ten
9 of 10
B/R Final Top 25 Teams: 6 (No. 3 Ohio State, No. 6 Michigan State, No. 11 Iowa, No. 12 Michigan, No. 22 Wisconsin, No. 23 Northwestern)
Non-Bowl Teams: 4* (Maryland, Rutgers, Illinois, Purdue)
Record vs. Power Five: 12-12 (3-4 in bowls)
*Nebraska and Minnesota went to bowls with 5-7 records
This looked like it was going to be the season when the Big Ten would dethrone the SEC as the top conference in college football. The Big Ten had three playoff contenders heading into conference championship Saturday, while the SEC only had Alabama to offer.
But a few lopsided losses in January bowls took away a chunk of the Big Ten's momentum—none bigger than the 38-0 beatdown Alabama handed to conference champion Michigan State in a playoff semifinal.
Bleacher Report's Ben Axelrod elaborated:
"A year ago, [Ohio State] seemed to drive a stake through the heart of the Crimson Tide—and by extension, the SEC—with their semifinal upset in the Sugar Bowl, but in one night, the goodwill the Big Ten had built in the past year had been undone by the Spartans' shortcomings.
"
The Big Ten went 3-4 in Power Five postseason matchups and was outscored 172-63 in its losses. Three of the Big Ten's top four teams in the final CFP rankings fell in the worst of those defeats. The league's overall bowl record was propped up by a pair of 5-7 teams winning their respective contests.
Still, 2015 was a big season for the Big Ten most of the way, and Michigan and Ohio State were able to go into the offseason with plenty of momentum for 2016 title runs. It still has some catching up to do with the SEC—a conference that snagged two of its best defensive coordinators in the offseason, as Brian Bennett of ESPN.com noted.
1. SEC
10 of 10
B/R Final Top 25 Teams: 5 (No. 1 Alabama, No. 7 Ole Miss, No. 18 LSU, No. 20 Tennessee, No. 24 Florida)
Non-Bowl Teams: 4 (Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina)
Record vs. Power Five: 14-7 (8-2 in bowls)
Before the flood of annoyed comments about #SECbias rains down, let's all consider some objective facts first.
The SEC went 6-5 against fellow Power Five conference teams before bowl season even began. Then the conference put together an impressive bowl record, with only one of its record-breaking victories coming against a Group of Five school.
This isn't a conference riding the coattails of Alabama's latest national championship win. The SEC, while not as dominant as it once was, remained the strongest conference in college football during a season in which it had a small number of true playoff contenders.
As Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee wrote, there are still plenty of issues in the conference, from powerhouses that fell below expectations—looking at you, preseason national title contender Auburn—to some major quarterback crises for the future.
But the nation's richest and most-talented conference held its own more often than not in 2015, and it ended the season on a high note. Now with a national champion back in its midst, the SEC will look to start another title-winning streak later this year.
Justin Ferguson is a college football writer at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
.jpg?w=600 "Texas Tech QB Enters Gambling Treatment (AP)")
.jpg?w=600 "Best NFL Free Agents")
