Best and Worst College Football Conferences of 2009

Another year of College Football has come and gone, and the BCS system is doomed once again to fail to produce an undisputed National Champion. 

The regular season this year has ended with five undefeated teams and the expected mass of very strong teams with a few losses. 

Once all the bowl games have been played, a minimum of two teams will remain undefeated. 

So how do we sort this out? 

Who really deserves to play for the championship this year?  What about next year and the year after that and the year after that?

Should the Mountain West be granted an automatic berth in the BCS Bowl games? 

What about the WAC?

What about the rest of the Division I-A conferences? Should the Sunbelt Conference, the Mid-America Conference, and Conference USA have some consideration, or shouldn’t they?

I don't think anyone will come up with an answer to all of these questions that will make everyone happy.  In my mind, the obvious solution in pretty much any sport with this many teams is clear: Create a playoff system. 

The arguments for and against having playoffs in Division I-A College Football are varied and passionately felt on both sides. 

For the most part, the discussion seems to center on one critical question: Which conference is the best conference?  Which is the worst?  Which conferences are strong and which are weak?

There are many ways one might go about trying to rank the 11 conferences in Division I-A Football.  I decided to use two methods and see what we get:

A.) Overall Win/Loss record for the Conference for this year.

B.) The number of significantly dominant teams in the conference for this year.

I have no particular agenda in mind here.  I was just very curious to see what it looks like when we measure those things that actually can be measured. 

Method A: Rankings based upon overall win and loss percentage.  

This is a fairly simple method.  Take the total number of games played by all members of the conference and calculate the percentage of those games that were wins. 

Here are the results:

1.) Big East Conference

60 wins and 36 losses  

Win Percentage:           63.3%

2.) SEC

91 wins and 55 losses

Win Percentage:           62.3%

3.) Big Ten Conference

76 wins and 56 losses

Win Percentage:           57.6%

4.) Big Twelve Conference      

84 wins and 62 losses

Win Percentage:           57.5%

5.) PAC Ten Conference                  

66 wins and 54 losses

Win Percentage:           55.0%

6.) ACC          

79 wins and 67 losses

Win Percentage:           54.1%

7.) Mountain West Conference

57 wins and 51 losses

Win Percentage:           52.8%

8.) WAC

55 wins and 56 losses

Win Percentage:           49.5%

9.) Conference USA

68 wins and 78 losses

Win Percentage:           46.6%

10.) Mid-America Conference

69 wins and 89 losses

Win Percentage:           43.7%

11.) Sun Belt

44 wins and 64 losses

Win Percentage:           40.7%

So based upon pure win/loss percentage, the Big East is actually the strongest conference of 2009.  This method has the conferences lining up pretty much the way one might expect them to. 

The traditional weak conferences make a very poor showing.  The traditional very strong conferences do very well. 

The Mountain West Conference is somewhere in the middle, not quite as good as your BCS conferences, but certainly not as weak as the other non-BCS conferences.  But the consensus strongest conference in the nation, the SEC, comes in second. 

Method Two: Rankings based upon the number of significantly dominant teams in the conference for this year works like this.  

For this method, undefeated teams, one-loss teams and two loss teams are counted. 

Each undefeated team is worth 3 points.  Each one-loss team is worth 2 points.  Each two-loss team is worth 1 point.  The conference with the most points wins. 

Tie-breakers go to the conference with the most undefeated teams.  If there is still a tie, whichever conference has the most one-loss teams wins. 

If there is still a tie, then the conference with the highest win percentage for the overall conference wins. 

This should measure one simple thing: How many exceptional teams did your conference produce this year?  As such, a conference is not being "punished" for its worst teams so much as just recognized for the dominant teams it produced. 

Here are the results:

1.) SEC

91 wins and  55 losses

Win Percentage:           62.3%

Undefeated Teams:       1

One Loss Teams:          1

Two Loss Teams:          0

Total = 5 points

2.) Mountain West Conference

57 wins and 51 losses

Win Percentage:           52.8%

Undefeated Teams:       1

One Loss Teams:          0

Two Loss Teams:          1

Total = 4 points

3.) Big East Conference

60 wins and 36 losses  

Win Percentage:           63.3%

Undefeated Teams:       1

One Loss Teams:          0

Two Loss Teams:          0

Total = 3 points

4.) Big Twelve Conference      

84 wins and 62 losses

Win Percentage:           57.5%

Undefeated Teams:       1

One Loss Teams:          0

Two Loss Teams:          0

Total = 3 points

5.) WAC

55 wins and 56 losses

Win Percentage:           49.5%

Undefeated Teams:       1

One Loss Teams:          0

Two Loss Teams:          0

Total = 3 points

6.) Big Ten Conference

76 wins and 56 losses

Win Percentage:           57.6%

Undefeated Teams:       0

One Loss Teams:          0

Two Loss Teams:          3

Total = 3 points

7.) PAC Ten Conference                  

66 wins and 54 losses

Win Percentage:           55.0%

Undefeated Teams:       0

One Loss Teams           0

Two Loss Teams:          1

Total = 1 point

8.) ACC          

79 wins and 67 losses

Win Percentage:           54.1%

Undefeated Teams:       0

One Loss Teams:          0

Two Loss Teams:         1

Total = 1 point

9.) Conference USA

68 wins and 78 losses

Win Percentage:           46.6%

Undefeated Teams:       0

One Loss Teams:          0

Two Loss Teams:         1

Total = 1 point

10.) Mid-America Conference

69 wins and 89 losses

Win Percentage:           43.7%

Undefeated Teams:       0

One Loss Teams:          0

Two Loss Teams:         1

Total = 1 point

11.) Sun Belt

44 wins and 64 losses

Win Percentage:        40.7%

Undefeated Teams:       0

One Loss Teams:          0

Two Loss Teams:          0

Total = 0 points

If we rank things this way, we see the SEC move up into the No. 1 spot.  Since the SEC is widely considered to be the best conference in the nation, we might assume that we've found a better ranking method here. 

But wait!  The consensus "power conferences" don't do as well with this method.  According to this ranking, the Mountain West is the second most powerful conference in the nation, and is second only to the SEC. 

Also, the WAC outranks the Big Ten, PAC Ten and ACC. 

One thing doesn't change no matter how you look at it: The Sunbelt Conference is the definitely weakest conference in football for 2009. 

I thought this was interesting so I figured I'd share the results.