With the national title game tomorrow, I figured I’d sneak in the results of my sim of the new conferences that we established last year. I’ll refer you over to Ryan’s post on Saturday for the introduction and get straight to the results. We combined to do 1 sim last year so the winners Ryan mentioned from last year are the same for me, so I’ll leave them out.
New England: 2008 Winner: Penn State
Penn State had their way with this conference, but were not quite as dominant for me as they were for Ryan. They won a nail biter over Boston College to clinch the conference title and lost by 1 point to real life conference rival Michigan State in a non-conference game, finishing 11-1. As a conference, New England was exactly .500, with Navy also finishing in 3rd place for me. Penn State, who beat Syracuse 83-14, will be seeded #9 in the tournament
Order of finish: Penn State, UCONN, Navy, Boston College, Buffalo, Rutgers, Maryland, Temple, Army, Syracuse.
Appalachian: 2008 Winner: Cincinnati
My sims also demonstrated a preference for Big East teams over the ACC in this conference, but Cincinnati’s 46-10 win over West Virginia turned out to be the tiebreaker as both teams finished with an 8-1 record in conference. What was Cincy’s only loss? To Ohio, of course.(?!) Somehow, Ohio finished 3rd in this conference with an 8-4 overall record. The conference finished 2 games over .500 which gave Cincy the 7 seed.
Order of finish: Cincinnati, West Virginia, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, Kentucky, Marshall, Virginia, Louisville, Miami (OH)
Great Lakes: 2008 Winner: Akron
Whaaa? By far the weirdest of all weird simulations. Somehow, someway, Akron went 8-1 in conference and 10-2 overall, losing to Kentucky non-conference and Ohio State in conference. Despite beating the conference champs, Ohio State finished third with a 7-2 record in conference and only 8-4 overall. They lost to Wake Forest and Boston College out of conference and in conference they got upset at Bowling Green and in the final game of the season, at Western Michigan, which not only gave Akron the conference title but also 8-1 Western Michigan 2nd place. The conference finished 3 games below .500, which gave Akron, one of only 2 10-2 teams to win a conference, the 12th seed.
Order of finish: Akron, Western Michigan, Ohio State, Bowling Green, Michigan State, Michigan, Central Michigan, Toledo, Kent State, Eastern Michigan
Tobacco Road: 2008 Winner: North Carolina
Much like the ACC this year, this conference was pretty competitive. North Carolina and Wake Forest both finished 8-1 in conference, with UNC winning their head to head matchup. In a pretty bizzare twist, North Carolina’s only conference loss was to 3-9 Memphis, which was their only conference win (oh, and Memphis lost to TOLEDO 72-7). Surprisingly, Middle Tennessee finished 3rd. The conference was 1 game above .500, and as the only other 10-2 team to win, North Carolina got the 11th seed.
Order of finish: North Carolina, Wake Forest, Middle Tennessee State, East Carolina, Tennessee, NC State, Vanderbilt, Duke, Western Kentucky, Memphis.
Midwest: 2008 Winner: Iowa
In rather shocking fashion, Iowa rolled through this conference and a very tough non conference schedule (at Missouri and vs. Georgia) to become my first 12-0 team. In what turned out to be a pretty top-heavy conference, Wisconsin and Ball State also got 10 wins. The non conference games made the middle of the pack look pretty messed up in the final standings, as 4th place Northwestern was 0-3 out of conference to finish 5-7 and 8th place Minnesota was 3-0 out of conference to finish 6-6. Northern Illinois is the first of 3 0-12 teams. The conference was .500, earning Iowa the 4th seed.
Order of finish: Iowa, Wisconsin, Ball State, Northwestern, Illinois, Notre Dame, Purdue, Minnesota, Indiana, Northern Illinois
Florida: 2008 Winner: Florida
For the second year, the Gators dominated their namesake conference. Unlike in Ryan’s sim, they lost their huge non-conference game with Oklahoma. Troy also finished 2nd for me, going 10-2 overall. The conference was 1 game above .500, giving Florida the 8th seed.
Order of finish: Florida, Troy, Florida State, Florida Atlantic, Southern Mississippi, Miami (FL), South Florida, Central Florida, Tulane, Florida International
Great Plains: 2008 Winner: Oklahoma
Oklahoma rolled through this conference to a 12-0 record. Tulsa finished a solid 2nd. Kansas State went 0-12. Not much else to discuss here… The conference finished 2 games below .500, which gave the Sooners the 5th seed.
Order of finish: Oklahoma, Tulsa, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas State, Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa State, Kansas State
Dixie: 2008 Winner: Clemson
I was definitely surprised here, as Clemson left a trail of destruction and finished 12-0. Their only close game was a narrow win at Alabama. Ole Miss also put up a strong showing, finishing 11-1 and only lost to Clemson. Georgia was big disappointment, finishing only 6-6. The conference was 1 game over .500, which earned Clemson the 3rd seed.
Order of finish: Clemson, Ole Miss, Alabama, Georgia, Auburn, Georgia Tech, South Carolina, UAB, Louisiana-Monroe, Mississippi State
Gulf Coast: 2008 Winner: TCU
Whatifsports seems to love TCU this year, and they blew out just about everyone in their path for a dominant 12-0 finish, winning 5 by shutout. They won the conference by 2 games, as Houston beat Texas, LaTech and LSU beat Houston, Texas destroyed LaTech, and Texas and LaTech beat LSU. Everyone else pretty much sucked, and SMU was 0-12. This was the weakest conference of all, finishing 4 games under .500, so TCU got the 6th seed.
Order of finish: TCU, Texas, Louisiana Tech, Houston, LSU, Louisiana-Lafayette, Rice, Texas A&M, North Texas, SMU
Mountain West: 2008 Winner: Texas Tech
The Red Raiders managed to be on the winning end of all 12 of their shootouts, going undefeated. Surprisingly, BYU, New Mexico, and Baylor all finished the year 9-3, while everyone else was fighting to stay away from the bottom. This was my strongest conference, finishing 4 games over .500, which gave Texas Tech the #1 seed in the tournament.
Order of finish: Texas Tech, BYU, Baylor, New Mexico, Air Force, Colorado, Wyoming, UTEP, Colorado State, New Mexico State
Great Basin: 2008 Winner: Boise State
The Broncos dominated this conference, going 9-0 but lost to Texas Tech non-conference. I was surprised by Boise’s strength, considering they had to face Utah, Oregon, and Oregon State. Well, it turned out OSU fell flat on their face, only finishing 4-5, while Nevada finished 3rd at 7-2. Washington and Washington State were both 2-10, but Washington was winless in conference but managed to sneak out 2 non-conference wins, while WSU got punished non-conference but beat Washington and UNLV in conference play. The conference finished 1 game under .500, giving Boise the 10th seed.
Order of finish: Boise State, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Oregon State, Utah State, Idaho, Washington State, UNLV, Washington
California: 2008 Winner: USC
USC was absolutely incredible. They outscored their opponents 711-19, which included 8 shutouts and only allowing 1 TD all season to Cal. They also beat San Diego State 111-0 and Fresno State 90-3 (hey at least they were 1 of 4 teams to score on them).
Arizona had a nice showing, finishing 9-3 and in 2nd. The conference was only 1 game over .500, giving USC the #2 seed.
Order of finish: USC, Arizona, California, Arizona State, Stanford, San Jose State, UCLA, Fresno State, Hawaii, San Diego State
First Round of Tournament:
#8 Florida 31, #9 Penn State, 24: Penn State took a 10 point lead into the 4th quarter the Gators scored 17 in the 4th to get the comeback win.
#5 Oklahoma 52, #12 Akron, 37: Akron’s cinderella season comes to an end, thanks to a strong running game for the Sooners.
#6 TCU 38, #11 North Carolina 14: TCU’s running attack and defense dominate again, but Cameron Sexton was able to get a little done throwing the ball.
#10 Boise State 27, #7 Cincinnati 17: In a semi-upset, Boise State led a pretty evenly matched game to get the win.
2nd Round of Tournament:
#8 Florida 21, #1 Texas Tech 3: In a surprising defensive game, the Gators shut down Graham Harrell to move to the semi-finals.
#4 Iowa 24, #5 Oklahoma 22: The Sooners had no answer for Shonn Greene, who had 228 yards and 2 TDs in a shocking win that spoils a semi-final real life BCS Championship matchup.
#6 TCU 18, #3 Clemson 16: Clemson took a 16-0 lead into the 4th, but Frogs scored a TD and missed a 2 pointer, returned a punt for a TD with an extra point, kicked a field goal to tie it, then won by scoring on a safety with 1:13 to go in the game.
#2 USC 21, #10 Boise State 7: Boise State actually scored a TD on USC and didn’t allow 70 points…that’s almost like a win.
Semi-Finals: #8 Florida 52, #4 Iowa 13: Florida runs all over Iowa for 442 yards. How did Iowa get this far again?
#2 USC 27, #6 TCU 2: The Trojans contine to roll as they put up a pretty big number on TCU, but TCU’s defense still had a little to show with a safety being their only points scored.
National Championship: #2 USC 20, #8 Florida 15: The Men of Troy are your national champs. Somewhere, Mark May is smiling. This was a pretty good game though. Florida took a 9-7 lead into the 4th quarter but Damian Williams caught a TD pass to put USC up 14-9. Florida quickly retaliated with a 74 yard run by Jeffery Demps but they missed to a 2 point conversion to take a 15-14 lead. On the following drive, Mark Sanchez marched USC down for another TD, scored by Joe McKnight. They missed the 2 point conversion but held off Tim Tebow for the final 6 minutes to get the win.
Lessons Learned:
1. Whatifsports must have been created by TCU and Iowa grads.
2. USC may very well have been the best team in the country this year…sadly, they don’t get a chance to prove it.
3. It was interesting that Florida made it back to the national title game despite having 1 loss (to Oklahoma) just like in real life. It’s too bad they didn’t get a chance at revenge in the playoffs.
4. This is a pretty awesome way to structure a college football season and should be done immediately
I’ll probably structure next year’s schedule for my sim based on my results so our 2 sims next year should be even more interesting with teams playing different schedules.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
