Ok, ok hear me out. Virginia Tech and Cincinnati seem bound for a very low-rated Orange Bowl showdown in a few weeks. I was talking with Ryan about how these 2 teams floated to top of the pile of crap that was the ACC and Big East this season, or so I thought. This college football season has been all about the Big 3 in the Big 12, Alabama, Florida, USC, Penn State, and even Utah, while the Big East and ACC teams all have at least 2 losses and are pretty far down on the BCS standings. Just to try to prove my point about the 2 conferences, I took a look at the 2 conferences’ records versus non-conference BCS teams (and Notre Dame, since they are capable of an automatic bid as well), expecting them both to be pretty bad. Well it turns out they are the only 2 conferences that have winning records against non-conference BCS teams.
The ACC had a ton of parity this year, and in a sport where 1 loss could put you out of the title hunt, it was seen as mediocrity. The ACC actually played the most aggressive non-conference schedule of anyone, playing 23 games against BCS opponents and finishing an impressive 15-8. The national title game is going to be SEC Champ Florida vs. Big 12 Champ Oklahoma, but the ACC was 6-4 vs. the SEC and a perfect 4-0 vs. the Big 12. Granted, Florida beat 2 ACC teams and none of the big 3 played an ACC team, but that’s still pretty impressive. Conference Champ Virginia Tech beat a Big 12 team, Nebraska, on the road in their only game against a BCS team.
The Big East was 9-7, thanks to 2 wins over Notre Dame. They also played pretty respectably against the Big 12 and SEC, finishing 3-2 and 1-1, respectively. Conference Champ Cincinnati’s adventure against a Big 12 team, at Oklahoma, didn’t go so well….A 52-26 loss.
The other conferences had narrow losing records, with the Big 12 finishing 7-8, Big Ten 6-7, Pac-10 6-8, and what everyone seems to think is the toughest conference, the SEC, finishing 6-9. Outside of Florida, the ACC had their way with the SEC this year which led to that poor record. Some other things to note is the Big Ten didn’t play the SEC and the Big East didn’t play the PAC-10. USC was 3-0 against non-conference BCS teams, which makes the Pac-10 only 3-8 without them (and I was at one of those wins, when Purdue choked away a game to Oregon). The 2 atrocious Washington schools didn’t help the Pac-10 out very much. I’ll paste the complete grid below (clicking on it enlarges it if its hard to see).
So, it seems like Florida and Oklahoma are the 2 best teams in the country, and should be playing for the national title. Even though their conferences didn’t do as well against BCS teams as the ACC and Big East, they took care of business against those conferences with Florida getting those 2 wins over the ACC and Oklahoma beating Big East Champ Cincinnati soundly (and Washington….big surprise?). But could you imagine if the national title game was chosen by having the champions of the 2 “strongest” conferences based on record outside of their conference play each other? Maybe the BCS and the polls aren’t such a bad thing after all.
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