Monday, September 27, 2010

2010 Week 4 College Football Conference Breakdown; Pac-10 #1, SEC #2, Big-12 #3

With most conferences playing the bulk of their non-conference schedule early in the year, we now have enough data to take a look at how the various conferences compare.  See the table at the bottom of this entry for the details where the average, high, and low ratings for each conference according to the computer are tallied.

In what may be a surprise, the Pac-10 has the highest average ahead of the SEC.  The Big-12, Big-Televen, and ACC fall in behind and what isn't a surprise is that the Big-East trails all other BCS conferences.

Why is the Pac-10 ahead of the SEC right now?  Simply put, it comes down to schedule strength to this point.  The average schedule strength for Pac-10 teams is 69.014 right now compared to 66.950 for the SEC.  That over 2 point gap is actually slightly greater than the gap between average team ratings so if the SEC had played a similar schedule to this point they'd likely be #1.  Also, the one direct connection between the conferences had Oregon thumping Tennessee.

Why is the schedule strength that much lower?  It is primarily because the Pac-10 has played against teams like Nevada (#4), TCU (#6), Iowa (#10), Boise St (#12), Nebraska (#15), Oklahoma St (#26), and Texas (#30) while the SEC has only played Oregon (#5), Clemson (#21), Penn St (#24), and Northwestern (#29).

The  Pac-10 certainly has highs and lows in their ratings though with WSU being the worst at #103 while the SEC worst is only #79 Tennessee.


RankConferenceAverageHighLow
RankConferenceAverageHighLow
1Pac-1077.14195.20257.011
2SEC75.22087.81664.126
3Big-1273.68680.63261.913
4Big-Televen72.18588.07958.136
5ACC71.66683.49957.619
6Independent69.03971.57365.240
7Big-East67.02875.37359.771
8Mountain-West65.44385.33043.160
9WAC64.91285.80446.075
10C-USA63.48873.33352.603
11MAC61.50173.48641.798
12Sun-Belt56.09064.85949.846

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