Conference Strength

Check any college football message board and you will quickly notice how any topic quickly changes into a discussion about conference strength.  Keep in mind, these are just fans talking and no one drinks the Kool-Aid better than a rabid fan base.  Ironically, these same fans are the first to criticize their QB or coach for calling a running play when clearly a pass would have produced a touchdown worth 50 points. 

The question is interesting though.  Which conference is the toughest right now?  Pundits, writers and TV personalities generally think the SEC is the toughest conference right now.  Based on their analysis, I can only conclude that the SEC schools win every game against every opponent, and every good player in the NFL is from an SEC school. 

What criteria should be used to evaluate the strength of a conference?  BCS titles?  This is a decent variable, but not necessarily a good measure because it could just mean the top team from one conference was better than the top team from another conference.  Plus, the BCS has only matched the top two teams three times in ten years.  Plenty of mismatches have occurred.  How about the number of teams ranked in the Top 25 in the final AP and Coaches polls?  Again, decent variable, but what if certain teams that are ranked did not play any good teams out of conference?  Are good wins in your own conference enough to warrant a strong final ranking?  Perhaps.  How about bowl records?  This is probably the weakest of variables because the head to head match ups are often skewed.  For example, the 2007 Insight Bowl featured the #2 ACC team (BC) playing the #8 Big Ten team (Mich St).  Not exactly the fairest of match ups. 

The best way to measure the strength of a conference is regular season, non-conference head to head games against BCS schools.  This variable allows you to see how teams from one conference fare against quality teams from the other conferences. 

Since the SEC is the darling of most people right now, let's see how they have fared since 2003 

 

Non-Conference regular season records against BCS school opponents are:

 

1. Big 10  43-31

2. ACC  43-49

3. Big East 34-36

4. PAC 10 24-32

5. Big 12 25-27

6. SEC 30-33

 

Not only is the Big Ten second in total non conference games played against BCS schools during the regular season (ACC is 1^st with 92), the Big Ten is the only conference with a winning record against non-conference opponents from BCS schools.

Perhaps the wins have been against ranked teams from other conferences.  Not exactly.

Here are some regular season non-conference losses against BCS opponents for the SEC since 2002.

Oklahoma(2x), USC (4x), Ga Tech (3x), S Fla, Miami (4x), Fla St (2x), Va Tech, Tech Tech (2X), Lousiville (4x), Indiana, Missouri (2x), Oregon (2x), Virginia, Clemson (4x), ND (2x), CAL, Michigan, West Virginia (2X), Rutgers and Wake. By my count, the SEC has 7 losses to the PAC 10, 6 losses to the Big 12, 16 losses to the ACC, 8 losses to the Big East and two losses to ND.

Perhaps the SEC plays more road non-conference games against BCS schools.  Nope.

Out of the 30 non-conference wins the SEC has against BCS schools since 2003, only 14 have been away games. Five of the away games were

Fla

over

Fla

State

and Ga over Ga Tech – not exactly tough road wins during the last 5 seasons. By comparison, the Big 10 has 19 road wins in non-conference play against BCS schools.

Are there any bright spots? Yes.

LSU and GA do stick out those because they only have one loss between them in non-conference play (Va Tech beat LSU in 2003).

Are there anymore strengths?

The SEC is 23-14 in bowl games since 2003.

What does all of this mean?

My point is not that the SEC is an inferior conference. Instead, I am rejecting the idea that the SEC does not need to play a strong non-conference schedule because the conference is tough enough.   The argument that the SEC is the toughest conference because they’ve won four BCS Championships is not entirely strong.  Again, perhaps the SEC has had just the best team and the rest of the teams were good, avg and poor – see the losses to the other conferences over the last six seasons – plenty of them. The teams that the SEC champion is beating to get to the title game are also being beaten by the other conferences in non-conference regular season play – REGULARLY and OFTEN.  You cannot argue that LSU beating Ole Miss is a more quality win than

Missouri

beating Ole Miss in the same season. My position is the SEC would not play in the BCS Championship as often if they played better non-conference opponents more consistently.   Additionally, maybe some of their teams would not be ranked as high if they played better non-conference opponents. 

To add some color to conference strength, the SEC has won the BCS Championship in the 1998, 2003, 2006 and 2007 seasons.  In those same years, head to head, the Big Ten is 6-2 against the SEC in bowl games – not including Fla/LSU’s wins over OSU – so the actual head to head is 6-4 in the Big Ten’s favor. If you include the year OSU won in 2002, the record head to head is 7-5 in the Big Ten’s favor.

Would anyone argue that the Big Ten is better than the SEC right now?  Doubtful, but the head to head record suggests the Big Ten is better, just not at the top.  The likely conclusion is all the conferences have 1 great team, 2-3 good teams, 2-3 average teams and 2-3 bad teams.