I missed this post last week due to the Ryder Cup and other obligations. It was a busy week, but things are finally evening out a bit.
What I do here is compare each conference's record against all BCS, FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly known and Division 1A), and others. We hear a lot about inter-conference strenghts from proponents of every conference, and while this analysis is hardly a definitive argument for or against a conference, it does give us a directional idea of how the 12 FBS conferences are performing overall.
In the end, the debate about conference strength or weakness is largely academic, but it is fun and often full of nearly as much passion and pride as the individual teams. So with that said, here are the results as of today, and it does include the results from last night's games:
| FBS (including BCS) | BCS (Conferences) | Other | ||||||||||||||
| Rank | Conference | Last Rank | W | L | % | TTL FBS | W | L | % | TTL BCS | W | L | % | TTL Other | TTL Games | Remarks |
| 1 | SEC | 2 | 18 | 4 | .818 | 22 | 5 | 3 | .625 | 8 | 7 | 0 | 1.000 | 7 | 29 | Back on top |
| 2 | Big 12 | 1 | 23 | 8 | .742 | 31 | 6 | 6 | .500 | 12 | 8 | 0 | 1.000 | 8 | 39 | Strong |
| 2 | Big Ten | 2 | 23 | 8 | .742 | 31 | 5 | 5 | .500 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 1.000 | 10 | 41 | Strong |
| 4 | Mountain West | 5 | 13 | 5 | .722 | 18 | 7 | 3 | .700 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 0.833 | 6 | 24 | Best against BCS |
| 5 | ACC | 7 | 11 | 8 | .579 | 19 | 6 | 6 | .500 | 12 | 12 | 0 | 1.000 | 12 | 31 | Improving |
| 6 | Big East | 7 | 10 | 11 | .476 | 21 | 5 | 6 | .455 | 11 | 6 | 0 | 1.000 | 6 | 27 | Hanging |
| 7 | Pac-10 | 4 | 10 | 12 | .455 | 22 | 5 | 6 | .455 | 11 | 2 | 0 | 1.000 | 2 | 24 | Weakening further |
| 8 | WAC | 12 | 7 | 14 | .333 | 21 | 2 | 11 | .154 | 13 | 6 | 0 | 1.000 | 6 | 27 | Better than last |
| 9 | Independents (FBS) | 10 | 3 | 7 | .300 | 10 | 2 | 4 | .333 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0.750 | 4 | 14 | Slightly better |
| 10 | Conference USA | 6 | 7 | 19 | .269 | 26 | 2 | 13 | .133 | 15 | 6 | 0 | 1.000 | 6 | 32 | Bottom fell out |
| 11 | Mid-American | 11 | 8 | 24 | .250 | 32 | 3 | 20 | .130 | 23 | 7 | 0 | 1.000 | 7 | 39 | As expected |
| 12 | Sun Belt | 9 | 4 | 17 | .190 | 21 | 2 | 13 | .133 | 15 | 3 | 0 | 1.000 | 3 | 24 | As expected |
Notes:
- Check out the Moutain West -- they are getting it done against the BCS, and they aren't even a BCS conference.
- The ACC is improving -- a lot.
- The Pac-10 is looking much weaker than expected, and has a losing BCS record.
- The SEC sure hasn't played many BCS teams out of conference compared with everyone else. The only group with fewer are the FBS Independents, a tiny group of four teams including Western Kentucky, Notre Dame, Army and Navy.
Comment away.