Ranking the "Power" Conferences

So here we are again. In a post that should spark some debate I will attempt to rank the power conferences in the NCAA. Here are the conferences I will be looking at: Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac 12, SEC, ACC, and just for fun, the Mountain West. When I started this endeavor I had a general idea of how it was going to go, SEC on top, Pac12 and Big 12 towards the top, etc..etc...However, I found some surprises when I really started to break these conferences down. Frankly it ended up being more than I bargained for. What started as a quick, fun idea to talk about the conferences has turned into a 2-part power blog.

Before we get into the conferences I want to give a quick overview of the stats I used for the rankings. First I looked at each conference's last 4 years of bowl games. After getting the 4 year records I broke it down how each conference faired against all the other conferences in the past 4 years. This is where it got interesting and where the real research began. From this point I would look at the individual bowl games of conferences and the records of the teams playing in them to help paint what I felt was a full picture of what is happening within these conferences. I used the records of the teams GOING into the bowl, not the record of the teams AFTER the bowl. There is definitely room for debate and my findings are only my opinion and not written in stone, any comments are welcome.

For sanity's sake I only broke down what I felt to be the most interesting scenarios, and oddly enough most of that involved the ACC. I want to say there is no ACC bias, but I found them to be the most intriguing conference and probably the hardest to get a reading on. This in turn helped me rank them, but more on that when we get to the ACC. Now without further delay let's get into the rankings.

7. Mountain West - I was not even going to include the Mountain West in my research until I noticed something while I was researching the Pac 12. The Mountain West is 13-9 for a win percentage of 59% over the last 4 years. Out of that, the MW is 6-1 against the Pac 12....What?!? The MW is dominating a "power" conference! What is going on out there? Not only that, but they are 2-0 against the ACC and B10 combined. That's 8-1 against the "power" conferences. So why is the MW dead last on the list? Simple, beating up on the up-coming #6 conference does not get any points with me and the ACC and B10 wins came in 2010. The MW had a better bowl record (8-2) in 2009 and 2010 with Utah and without Boise State than after Utah left and Boise joined (5-8 in bowls for 2011 and 2012, with most of those losses coming against non-power conference teams). Not good enough, to use a phrase, they were who we (at least I) thought they were.

6. Pac 12 - I really expected more from this conference. Here is the break-down:
4 year bowl record: 10-16, 38%
vrs ACC 4-1
vrs B10 2-2
vrs B12 2-8
vrs SEC 0-1
vrs MW 1-4
For a deeper break down I looked at their games against the ACC and B10. I chose not to do the B12 because with 2 wins in 10 chances, there isn't much to research. The SEC was easy because that was when Oregon was beaten by Auburn in the National Championship Game.
B10 breakdown:
These were probably some of the most balanced and even bowl games of the past 4 years. Of course we had the over matched Wisconsin Badgers getting beat by Stanford last year in the Rose and those same poor Badgers getting out ran by a 12-2 Oregon team in 2011. Wisconsin was 11-3 in 2011 with some pride, but Oregon was making up for not playing for a national championship. In one of the Pac 12 losses, Illinois who was 6-6 at the time of the bowl was playing a 6-7 UCLA team....I hate the fact that teams with losing records make it to bowl games. The other loss came in 2009 when an 10-2 Ohio State team beat a 10-2 Oregon team. THAT game was a prime example of one team going out the door and another stepping through, complete changing of the guard.
ACC breakdown
These games featured some great mid-card type games and an Orange bowl. In 2012 a 7-5 USC team with no momentum got beat by a 6-7 Georgia Tech team. In 2011 an 7-5 Utah beat an 8-4 Georgia Tech. In 2010 an 11-1 Stanford beat an 11-2 Virginia Tech, and in 2009 an 8-4 USC beat an 8-4 Boston College team which quickly faded from the lime-light just a year later. The bottom-line against the ACC appears to be evenly matched record teams going at it with the best team winning, ie: there was a reason the Pac 12 wanted Utah.
Conclusion: The top of the Pac 12 is loaded with Stanford and Oregon. After that, who knows? Oregon and Stanford can't play in every bowl and a 38% win percentage in 36 chances is abysmal.

5. Big Ten - Kudos to these guys, I thought they would be dead last on the list, because all we hear about is how they are dominated by the SEC. Don't get me wrong, there is some domination from the SEC going on, but if we measured every conference simply by their record against the SEC this would be a short blog.
4 year bowl record: 13-19, 41%
vrs ACC 3-0
vrs Pac 12 2-2
vrs B12 3-6
vrs SEC 4-9
For a deeper look, we already looked at the Pac 12, and then I chose the 3-0 record against the ACC. With a 7-15 record against the B12 and SEC, once again I don't see what more research could turn up here, but with a 7-15 record against those 2, how does that same conference post a 3-0 against the ACC?
In 2011 a 10-2 Michigan team beat an 11-2 Virginia Tech team in the Sugar Bowl. Huge game of two highly touted teams, with Michigan coming from a little out of no-where that year to give Va Tech their send off before a 7-6 mark in 2012.
In 2009 Iowa at 10-2 beat a 11-2 Georgia Tech team and a 9-3 Wisconsin beat a 9-3 Miami.
Iowa has gotten worse every season since then, Wisconsin has stayed consistent and this was Miami being led out the door.
Conclusion: The B10 has sent their best, their not so best, and everything else against the B12 and SEC, with the biggest win probably being Ohio State over Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl, and Arkansas gave that game away at the end. The Michigan State bowl win over Georgia was a classic and could have went either way. Against the ACC you can almost track the B10 demise. They were a different conference in 2009 and 2010, with 2010 being when the tide really began to turn in my opinion. The B10 went from being 1-1 against the SEC in 2009 to being 1-3 in 2010, with more of the same coming against the B12. So for them to beat the ACC twice in 2009 is no shock, and the Michigan team that beat the Hokies turned around and got beat by South Carolina the next year. This conference has no doubt gone in the wrong direction, with only 7 bowl teams in 2012 (compared to 10 in 2011), but with only 2 wins as opposed to 2009 when they sent 7 and 4 came back victorious. A 41% win percentage in 32 chances puts them in the lower third.

4. ACC - This is the perennial middle of the road conference. Full of contradictions and intrigue, who will show up? How strong is this conference? Are they better than we think? Or do they under-achieve?
4 year bowl record: 13-17, 43%
vrs B12 0-1
vrs B10 0-3
vrs Pac 12 1-3
vrs Big East 4-4
vrs SEC 5-3
YOU READ THAT RIGHT!!!! A conference with a 1-7 record against the B12, B10, and Pac 12 is 5-3 against the SEC!!! That's FIVE WINS in 8 chances against the supposed power house of the country. THAT is why the ACC became the most intriguing conference to me. I thought the SEC was un-defeated in bowl games since Jesus beat the Devil in the Dust Bowl in 29 BC....(not really, but you get the point.) For the breakdowns I looked closer at the Big East and of course the SEC. For the sake of the length of this blog I will only look at the SEC now and will show the Big East break-down when we look at that conference in Part 2.
We will go in reverse order than the previous conferences:
2009
Clemson (8-5) beats Kentucky (7-5) - a SEC powerhouse Kentucky is not and this was just the start of the Clemson uprising
Virginia Tech (9-3) beats Tennessee (7-5) - another upper tier ACC team matched up against a mid level (at the time) SEC team
2010
North Carolina (7-5) beats Tennessee (6-6) in a classic. Not a big difference in records but Tennessee was probably only in this bowl because they were in the SEC and they have not been back since with two consecutive 5-7 seasons.
Florida State (9-4) beats South Carolina (9-4). Could have went either way, at this point and time this was not the South Carolina team we have today. They were coming from 7-6 the year before but have went 22-4 the 2 years since the Florida State loss and beat the Noles last year in the regular season. But this was a legit win for the ACC.
2011
Wake Forest (6-6) loses to Mississippi State (6-6). Mississippi State was starting to put it together in a tough SEC and this was really a fluke season for Wake Forest to even make it to a bowl. They went 5-7 the next year and were 8-16 the 2 years previous to the bowl game.
Virginia (8-4) loses to Auburn (7-5). Auburn was coming off a tough luck season without Cam Newton but was still talented and had lost to the better teams and beat everyone else on their schedule. No fluke win, a battle tested Auburn proving what the hype says about the SEC.
2012
North Carolina State (7-5) loses to Vanderbilt (8-4). An up and coming mid-level SEC team against a mid-level ACC team that had barely pulled off the huge Florida State upset. Not really a surprise how this one came out.
Clemson (10-2) beats LSU (10-2). A really heavy weight battle between 2 top teams that went back and forth and was only won by Clemson because of the less than stellar play-calling of the LSU offense. No defense can be on the field as long as LSU's was in this game; Clemson basically made the game winning drive against the 2nd team defense for LSU, after injuries and fatigue took their toll. Still, a gutsy game by Clemson when they could have folded and let this one go. If anyone doubted Clemson before this game, this one should have erased all doubt. The better team won this one, hands down.
Conclusion: As we have seen and how we shall see tomorrow when I do the Big East/ACC break-down the ACC is nothing to laugh at when they send their big teams (ie: teams with 9 or 10 wins) to bowls but are really middle of the pack when sending their mid-level teams; the ACC sends a LOT of mid-level teams. Their mid-cards beat the teams they should and lose to the ones you would expect, which puts the conference right in the middle with a 43% win percentage in 30 bowl chances.

That does it for Part 1 of the Conference Rankings. Part 2 will come Sunday as we look at the B12, SEC, and Big East (yes, the Big East made the top 3....)

As always do not hesitate to send comments to the blog or to collegefootballfanweekly@gmail.com. See you tomorrow!!!