Comparing the Automatic BCS Bid Conferences

At the end of the 2007 College Football season as well as at the beginning of the 2008 season, many of the pundits argued the ACC and the Big East scored the lowest in terms of collective conference strength, and they substantiated such arguments with solid facts. The ACC had performed atrociously in each of its BCS bowl appearances since the inception of the BCS. The only victory came at the hands of a Florida State win over Virginia Tech, who played in the Big East at the time and now plays in the ACC.

You can't help but cut the Big East some slack in this department. That conference has recently undergone a weakening by three of its powerhouse teams migrating the ACC: Boston College, Miami, and of course Virginia Tech. Considering the challenges that laid ahead of the Big East at the time of that transition, I think the Big East has made a good showing to at least hang on to their automatic BCS bid status.

The ACC, however, has no such excuse. At the time of the transition, the pundits gobbled up the hype and in some cases even began stacking the ACC next to the mighty SEC. The seasons that passed thereafter lead to quite a disappointment in how the ACC performed out of conference and during the bowl season. At the beginning of this season, I stated in a game preview that Virginia Tech should make its number one goal to win in the post season, wherever the post season took them. And of course by that I also suggested that all ACC teams should have had that goal. I have watched the ACC's out of conference performance this season very closely in the hopes of seeing a path towards the conference truly earning the status of which the pundits initially (and unduly) anointed the ACC at the time of its expansion.

I can't make it through a single posting on TSF without citing statistics, and I make no exception for this posting. I've compiled a set of standings in terms of wins and losses between each of the automatic bid conferences. I'm not trying to exclude non-automatic bid conferences for any reason other than this involved a lot of busy work. I don't have the fancy dancy searchable databases at the fingertips of professional commentators. I just compiled data for the automatic bid conferences because it seems a decent, although not perfect, way to compare these conferences. I did some of this by hand, so I apologize up front if there's a couple of errors. But for the most part, they have good data.

Overall Automatic Bid Conference Standings

Conference    GP Total    W Total    L Total    W %

SEC                 19         11          8    58%
Big 12              22         12         10    55%
Pac 10              15          8          7    53%
ACC                 26         13         13    50%
Big East            17          8          9    47%
Big Ten             16          6         10    38%

Let's first examine the overall record of the conferences. These standings include regular season and bowl season inter-conference play. To no real surprise, the SEC comes out on top, and the Big 12 comes in a close second. One surprise lies in who comes in third and fourth and by how many percentage points. This stat shows the Pac 10 to have a very good showing, only trailing the Big 12 by two percentage points. I think we can safely say that Pac 10 fans have been right call foul and claim themselves as an underrated conference this season. The ACC doesn't look too bad either, but this season's performance definitely leave some room for improvement. The Big East still has some headway to make to reestablishing themselves amongst the other automatic-bid'ers, and the Big Ten is hanging down in the basement. These standings give us a good birds eye view about how the conferences have performed with respect to each other, but let's take a further look at this in some different contexts.

Automatic Bid Conference Standings Regular Season Only

Conference  GP Reg Season  W Reg Season  L Reg Season  W %

ACC                    19            11             8  58%
SEC                    14             7             7  50%
Big Ten                10             5             5  50%
Big 12                 16             8             8  50%
Big East               14             7             7  50%
Pac 10                 11             4             7  36%

Here, we have the conference standings for games only played in the regular season, and this should make ACC fans proud. The ACC leads this category by 8 percentage points over the mighty SEC! I did expect that the ACC would perform better in this category than the previous, but I didn't think they'd come in first, and much less by 8 points. The SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and Big East all tie for the second, and the Pac 10 trails by a whopping 16 percentage points in last place. Maybe I need to retract that statement above about the Pac 10 fans saying their conference is underrated.

Overall Automatic Bid Conference Standings Bowl Season Only

Conf     GP Bowl Season  W Bowl Season  L Bowl Season  W %

Pac 10                4              4              0  100%
SEC                   5              4              1  80%
Big 12                4              3              1  75%
Big East              3              1              2  33%
ACC                   7              2              5  29%
Big Ten               8              2              6  25%

These standings only include bowl season contests. Continuing the Pac 10's schizophrenic storyline, they blow everybody else out of the water by running the table in all their bowl season games. That's impressive. So my conclusion about the Pac 10 is they deserve the award for most streaky conference amongst the automatic bid'ers. The SEC of course still holds it's own, along with the Big 12, but the percentages drop drastically after that. The Big East, ACC, and Big Ten performed quite poorly in the bowl season. The ACC has had this as an Achilles heel since the inception of the BCS. Virginia Tech did its part this year, so we Hokie fans have good reason to be proud. Hopefully, we'll get another bowl victory next year, but against a more reputable conference like the SEC or the Big 12. But what happened to Miami? I think their game against Cal may have made for the worst display of clock management, in both halves, that I have every witnessed in my entire football (college or pro) watching life! Then, Boston College drops one to Vanderbilt? I know Vanderbuild hails from the SEC, but come on, they aren't LSU or Auburn. Georgia Tech definitely had their hands full against LSU, but they should have at least made it into the end zone. Clemson put up a good fight against Nebraska, but couldn't pull out the W. But let's hand it to Florida State for punishing Wisconsin for bailing on the Hokies' inter-conference matchup. Then again, the game that replaced it, versus Nebraska, went pretty well. Getting back to the standings, the ACC played the inverse role of the Pac 10 this season: great in the regular season and poor in the bowl season. If the ACC wants to earn more recognition, it needs to improve its bowl season play considerably. Performing will in the regular season definitely has its value, but the bowl season has the most visibility and the most emphasized chatter between the pundits.

Automatic Bid Conference Standings Overall
excluding points differential of a single possession

Conference  GP Total  W Total  L Total  W %

ACC               18       11        7  61%
SEC               15        9        6  60%
Big Ten           10        5        5  50%
Big 12            17        8        9  47%
Pac 10            10        4        6  40%
Big East          10        3        7  30%

So I decided to list the standings of the automatic bid'ers again, but this time with a twist. I removed all the games that ended in a score differential of one possession. Think about this. Those games really could have gone either way, and the clock played a significant role in who earned the W. So in this category, the ACC just barely squeaks by the SEC with the highest win percentage. This shows that the ACC, despite some key losses, may have the poise to come out on top of all the other conferences if it makes a few adjustments and pulls out wins in those close games that go down to the final possession. I don't mean to undermine the value of a team that demonstrates time after time that it can win the close games. That is very important, and let's face, it makes for the most exiting type of football. All this stated, the ACC just may have a break out season in 2009 or 2010.

Automatic Bid Conference Standings Regular Season Only
excluding points differential of a single possession

Conf     GP Reg Season  W Reg Season  L Reg Season   W %

Big Ten              4             4             0  100%
ACC                 10             8             2   80%
SEC                 10             5             5   50%
Big 12               9             4             5   44%
Pac 10              11             4             5   36%
Big East             9             2             7   22%

    
Automatic Bid Conference Standings Bowl Season Only
excluding points differential of a single possession

Conf      GP Bowl Season  W Bowl Season  L Bowl Season   W %

Big East               1              1              0  100%
Pac 10                 1              1              0  100%
SEC                    4              3              1   75%
Big Ten                6              2              4   33%
ACC                    3              1              2   33%
Big 12                 1              0              1    0%

In conclusion, I think the ACC did make a positive step towards strengthening the conference name. A strong regular season of inter-conference play definitely has boosted the perception of strength of the ACC. The poor bowl season performance will most likely overshadow the strong regular season, however, but there is a positive side to that. If you know your conference has strengthened, but you opponents don't quite recognize it, they may not see you coming, and that may be worth a major upset or two in '09 in favor of the ACC.

Lastly, this table includes all the games I used in these standings for your reference. And as always, LET'S GO HOKIES!

Match	Winner	Loser	Season	W Points	L Points	Differential
Iowa vs. Pittsburgh	Big East	Big Ten	Regular	21	20	1
West Virginia vs. North Carolina	Big East	ACC	Bowl	31	30	1
Mississippi vs. Wake Forest	ACC	Big 12	Regular	30	28	2
Vanderbilt vs. Boston College	SEC	ACC	Bowl	16	14	2
Tennessee vs. UCLA	SEC	Pac 10	Regular	27	24	3
Kansas vs. South Florida	Big East	SEC	Regular	37	34	3
Vanderbilt vs. Duke	ACC	SEC	Regular	10	7	3
Baylor vs. Connecticut	Big East	Big 12	Regular	31	28	3
Pittsburgh vs. Oregon State	Pac 10	Big East	Bowl	3	0	3
Ohio State vs. Texas	Big 12	Big Ten	Bowl	24	21	3
West Virginia vs. Colorado	Big 12	Big East	Regular	17	14	3
Rutgers vs. NC State	Big East	ACC	Regular	33	29	4
Northwestern vs. Duke	Big Ten	ACC	Regular	24	20	4
Nebraska vs. Clemson	Big 12	ACC	Bowl	26	21	5
Virginia Tech vs. Nebraska	ACC	Big 12	Regular	35	30	5
Oregon vs. Purdue	Pac 10	Big Ten	Regular	32	26	6
Miami vs. California	Pac 10	ACC	Bowl	24	17	7
Michigan State vs. California	Pac 10	Big Ten	Regular	38	31	7
Northwestern vs. Missouri	Big 12	Big Ten	Bowl	30	23	7
California vs. Maryland	ACC	Pac 10	Regular	35	27	8
Kansas State vs. Louisville	Big East	Big 12	Regular	38	29	9
Oklahoma vs. Florida	SEC	Big 12	Bowl	24	14	10
Illinois vs. Missouri	Big 12	Big Ten	Regular	52	42	10
Oregon vs. Oklahoma State	Pac 10	Big 12	Bowl	42	31	11
Iowa State vs. Iowa	Big Ten	Big 12	Regular	17	5	12
Michigan State vs. Georgia	SEC	Big Ten	Bowl	24	12	12
Vanderbilt vs. Wake Forest	ACC	SEC	Regular	23	10	13
Virginia Tech vs. Cincinnati	ACC	Big East	Bowl	20	7	13
Penn State vs. USC	Pac 10	Big Ten	Bowl	38	24	14
Kansas vs. Oklahoma	Big 12	SEC	Regular	45	31	14
Georgia vs. Arizona State	SEC	Pac 10	Regular	27	10	17
South Carolina vs. Clemson	ACC	SEC	Regular	31	14	17
Auburn vs. West Virginia	Big East	SEC	Regular	34	17	17
Miami vs. Texas A&M	ACC	Big 12	Regular	41	23	18
Colorado vs. Florida State	ACC	Big 12	Regular	39	21	18
Syracuse vs. Northwestern	Big Ten	Big East	Regular	30	10	20
Iowa vs. South Carolina	Big Ten	SEC	Bowl	31	10	21
Minnesota vs. Kansas	Big 12	Big Ten	Bowl	42	21	21
Miami vs. Florida	SEC	ACC	Regular	26	3	23
Alabama vs. Clemson	SEC	ACC	Regular	34	10	24
Kentucky vs. Louisville	SEC	Big East	Regular	27	2	25
Connecticut vs. North Carolina	ACC	Big East	Regular	38	12	26
Cincinnati vs. Oklahoma	Big 12	Big East	Regular	52	26	26
Oklahoma State vs. Washington State	Big 12	Pac 10	Regular	39	13	26
Washington State vs. Baylor	Big 12	Pac 10	Regular	45	17	28
Wisconsin vs. Florida State	ACC	Big Ten	Bowl	42	13	29
Florida vs. Florida State	SEC	ACC	Regular	45	15	30
Oregon State vs. Penn State	Big Ten	Pac 10	Regular	45	14	31
Mississippi State vs. Georgia Tech	ACC	Big 12	Regular	38	7	31
North Carolina vs. Rutgers	ACC	Big East	Regular	44	12	32
Ohio State vs. USC	Pac 10	Big Ten	Regular	35	3	32
South Carolina vs. NC State	SEC	ACC	Regular	34	0	34
Georgia Tech vs. LSU	SEC	ACC	Bowl	38	3	35
Virginia vs. Connecticut	Big East	ACC	Regular	45	10	35
Oklahoma vs. Washington	Big 12	Pac 10	Regular	55	14	41
Arkansas vs. Texas	Big 12	SEC	Regular	52	10	42
Penn State vs. Syracuse	Big Ten	Big East	Regular	55	13	42
Virginia vs. USC	Pac 10	ACC	Regular	52	7	45