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.

Rank	Conference	Average	High	Low
Rank	Conference	Average	High	Low
1	Pac-10	77.141	95.202	57.011
2	SEC	75.220	87.816	64.126
3	Big-12	73.686	80.632	61.913
4	Big-Televen	72.185	88.079	58.136
5	ACC	71.666	83.499	57.619
6	Independent	69.039	71.573	65.240
7	Big-East	67.028	75.373	59.771
8	Mountain-West	65.443	85.330	43.160
9	WAC	64.912	85.804	46.075
10	C-USA	63.488	73.333	52.603
11	MAC	61.501	73.486	41.798
12	Sun-Belt	56.090	64.859	49.846