NCAA Football: Conference Debates Continued

So after another week and some more thinking about why my conference looks so crappy, I think it's time for me to redo my conference rankings. Here's the quick rundown:

SEC
Big 12
Pac-10
Big 10
Mountain West
Big East
ACC
WAC
Conference USA


Last time I posted, I put the SEC and Big 12 way ahead of everyone else, the Pac-10 below the Big 10, MWC, ACC, and WAC, and WAC above the Big East. So what changed my mind? Well, mostly strength of schedule, but also the bias that pervades throughout the polls.

The strength of schedule thing is easy. Which conference had the hardest non-conference schedule? Like every year, and by a huge margin, it was the Pac-10. In their 3 non-conference games each, the Pac-10 teams scheduled Oklahoma, Georgia, Penn State, BYU, Ohio State, Utah, Boise State, Fresno State, TCU, Oklahoma State, and Tennesee, all of which are or have been ranked. They also scheduled Michigan State and Maryland, which are sitting just outside the rankings, and New Mexico, Purdue, and Notre Dame, which are decent, if not great teams. Not one Pac-10 team scheduled a IIA opponent. On top of this, unlike most conferences that wait until their third or fourth game to start conference play, the Pac-10 has been playing in conference since opening day, and already every team has played at least one significant Pac-10 game. Every Pac-10 team has already played at least one very hard game, and some have played several.

For example, Washington and UCLA look crappy, but no duh, Washington has had the toughest schedule in college football with Oregon, BYU, and Oklahoma, and UCLA has played Tennessee, BYU, Arizona, and Fresno State. The Pac-10 doesn't have a great record right now, but that's not a huge surprise when you consider that they've been playing good teams this whole time.

This is the complete opposite of how SEC and Big 12 teams do things. Many of them haven't yet played a single significant game, a few have played one, and virtually none have played a real, honest-to-goodness, quality-type opponent. It's easy to look awesome when you haven't been tested. Like, congratulations for beating up on Eastern Washington, Nevada, SMU, and Massachusetts, Texas Tech, that must have been real rough on you guys! You guys really deserve to be ranked #7 in the entire country for making it through that gauntlet!

As soon as these teams start playing good, or even decent, competition, they'll start (or have started) falling off. Georgia lost to the second real team it faced, and Florida's lost to Ole Miss. Auburn lost to the first good team it faced. Kansas lost to the only good team it's faced. Nebraska lost to the second decent (not good, decent) team it faced.

Frankly, I think that the Mountain West Conference teams have faced a harder schedule than the SEC and especially Big 12 South teams have. And while the Big 10 isn't as bad either, Penn State is #6 despite having played only a few patsies, a team that always plays poorly against bad teams or in unimportant games (Oregon State), and one decent team. Really, voters? They owned up Coastal Carolina and had a mostly close game with Illinois. #6?

The second major thing that made me change my mind about the conferences was how biased the rankings are. Look at Vanderbilt. They got 0 votes in the preseason poll, beat Miami, South Carolina, Rice, and Ole Miss, and now they're #19 in the country. You beat up a patsy no-namer (that you were even with at half time) and a few teams who are way down this year, and you get to #19? Oklahoma State started the year unranked and with no votes, they beat Washington State (the Pac-10's consensus worst team), Houston, Missouri State, and Troy, aka nobody, and they make it to #21. Florida lost at home to a bad team, Ole Miss, which lost to Vandy, and people talk about how deep the SEC is that its supposedly crappy teams can take on its awesome teams, but USC lost on the road to a team that always plays well against good opponents, Oregon State, and people talk about how weak the Pac-10 is that its supposedly top teams lose to its weak teams. Kansas loses to the only decent team it's faced, but yeah, only drop them 6 spots, but Oregon loses to the 2nd decent team it's faced, and throw them down 8 spots, out of the polls!

While it's not quite as favored as the SEC and Big 12 teams this year, the Big 10 also gets some pretty favorable rankings. It was obvious to everyone that Ohio State wasn't that good after getting its ass handed to it in the championship game, losing some key players, barely beating Ohio, getting just absolutely destroyed by USC, and making a game against Troy close for 3 quarters, but hey, its name is Ohio State, start it out at #2 and leave it at #14. Whereas Oregon probably would have made a real game of the national championship if Dixon hadn't gotten hurt, they lose a couple guys in the offseason, they beat a couple just-ok teams more convincingly than Ohio State beat its patsies, and they barely lose to a pretty good team, but start them at #21 and leave them at #23. Whatever.


Anyway, I still think that the SEC and Big 12 are probably the best conferences in that they still have more very high level teams than the others do. I think teams like Texas Tech, Florida, Auburn, and Kansas will end up with a few losses this year, and I think they'd end up with losses in any conference, but I do think that Oklahoma, Missouri, and Alabama are for real, for example. But to say that they're way above the other conferences is nonsense; of course they look awesome right now, it's easy to look awesome against Sam Houston State and Louisiana Tech.

I don't have much hope that the voters will realize this and lift more than two or three Pac-10 teams into the rankings, but once Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Illinois each get another loss and teams in the SEC and Big 12 start losing because they're finally playing real teams, I definitely think some Pac-10 teams will deserve to be there.