Ranking the Conferences

TSF is just a short ways away from publishing our final rankings for the 2010-2011 season. But before we get to that, I'm going to post a ranking of all the conferences that had some presence in the Top 25 season. For the purposes of this article, let's just call those conferences the Top-25'ers. Before I get into the messy business of ranking them, I have to explain that this makes for no exact science, and I need to give the background to the methodology I applied. In no way can we make an apples-to-apples comparison, but hey...it's fun to try.

First, as you know, every Division I school plays some lower tier opponents to soften their out of conference schedule. Some teams play more of these games than others. And some conference schedules allow for more intra-conference play that others. As a result the number of inter-conference play between Top-25'ers varies between one another. This means Top-25 conference X may play 33 contests against other Top-25'ers while conference Y may only play 20. I've taken that into consideration as best I can.

To compile the raw data, since I don't have the fancy database search tools at my hands as do the broadcasters' announcers, I had to manually assemble this looking through each team's results. Full disclaimer, I may have one to two things wrong due to human error, but I did the best I could not to make any mistakes. So onto the methodology...each conference has a row of data including wins, losses, total inter-Top-25'er contests, and win percentage. I have compiled six sets of standings. The first two have the same data as one another, just sorted differently. They contain the standings for the Top-25'ers sorted by win percentages and the same sorted by number of inter-Top-25'er conference contests. The second set of two holds the same data, respectively, but for the bowl season only. And finally the last two standings consider the entire season, regular and bowl.

First, let's start with the regular season.



We can see that the Big 12 took on the most inter-Top-25'er contests, and on top of that they finished with the highest win percentage. Trailing by just a little in win percentage, the SEC places right behind the Big 12, but with considerably less games. The rest of the Top-25'ers play roughly the same amount of games as the SEC, so we probably don't need to lean on the sorted by numbers of inter-Top-25'er contests standings too much here. After the SEC, we see a gap between the 2nd and 3rd place conferences. The Big Ten and Pac 10 take the next spots in that order and with similar win percentages, followed by the WAC and MWC. The ACC trails them, and the Big East is hanging in the basement.

While the number of inter-Top-25'er games doesn't necessarily tell us which conferences are stronger than others, it does tell us which programs are trying to put together exiting and challenging schedules, which of course factors into individual team rankings. The Big 12 is clearly making the biggest effort.

Now, let's turn to the bowl season.



Here, the win percentages can't sand on their own. The WAC is first for crying out loud, and even worse the Big East ranks higher than the SEC! So for the bowl season, let's weigh how many teams actually competed in bowls. I think this strongly represents people's perceptions of how these conferences compare to one another, with the exception of the Big East. They almost certainly don't deserve a standing higher than the Pac 10. But the Pac 10's low number of bowl bids shows how top heavy and lopsided the conference is. Although this chart doesn't reflect every bowl bid for every conference (some played against non-Top-25'ers), it does for the Pac 10. If we throw in USC pretending their scandal didn't exist, that wold still only bring them to tied with the Big East. Our ACC did okay in this respect. This chart reflects the inter-Top-25er bowl play for the ACC, but the total number for the ACC is actually higher with 9 appearances.

And finally, let's look at the entire season.



I weight the standing here with the sorting by win percentages more heavily. Even though the number of inter-Top-25'er contests vary between 33 and 20, 20 is still a sizable enough sample set to gage a win percentage that indicates something significant. In that chart the Big 12 just barely edges out the SEC. The Big 12 did so well in the regular season, but they had a very mediocre performance in the bowl season, but they still managed to hang on to their narrow lead over the SEC. The SEC pretty much held on to where they were in terms of win percentage, with only small drop. The Big 10 however, performed abysmally during the bowl season in comparison to the hype we heard all season long about the strength of that conference, but fortunately for them, only weaker conferences trailed them and had too much ground to make up from the regular season to catch them. All of those conferences behind the Big Ten made up some ground, but nothing dramatic.

So there you have it. That's how the Top-25'ers stack up to one another. We could use this for speculation into seasons to come, but that has its limits with some of the movement of programs between the conferences in coming seasons. TCU heads to the Big East. Utah and Colorado head to the Pac 10, err Pac 12. Nebraska heads to the Big Ten with twelve teams, leaving the Big 12 with, umm, ten teams. And who would dare say that doesn't make sense? And the SEC has accepted the James Madison Dukes...PSYCH! Comparing the conferences always provides a good barometer for how teams earn their rankings in the BCS, the poll, and of course right here on TSF. As I said earlier, it's not an exact science. Somebody else running this exercise with his/her own method could produce different results, although I'd get a little suspicious if the Big East or the WAC wound up beating out the SEC. But nonetheless, I think the endeavor worthwhile for a little speculative fun.

Something that I didn't measure was a consideration of the number of games that ended with the difference of a single touchdown or less. My raw data includes that, so maybe there'll be a follow-up on that. The argument on that has some given and take. While you could say that a game that close could have gone either way, we could also say that it's the elite programs that finish strong in the close games, hence making them elite programs. So does winning by seven or less mean a weaker win or a stronger team? I think there's a case for both.

You can access the raw data here: 2010_conference_rankings.ods. You will need Open Office to view it. If you don't have that program, it's freely available for all the commonly used platforms: Open Office. (If you run Mac OS, Neo Office will also work if you don't want to run X: NeoOffice)

Looking onward to the 2011-12 season...LET'S GO HOKIES!

Game Preview - Orange Bowl

After week two's loss James Madison, no college football fan could make a strong case for Virginia Tech's appearance in a BCS bowl. In fact, even some Hokie faithful began to have chills of a bowl ineligible season, but here we are about to watch our Hokies compete against Stanford for the Orange Bowl title. I can't claim to have had full confidence in the Hokies running the table in their ACC schedule, but as frustrated as the loss to JMU made me, I didn't see the Hokies dropping too many more contests. Part of me even had a sense of relief that our worst losses lay behind us. And as we've seen thus far, the recurring theme has been that of a late start, for both many individual games and the season as a whole. Our Hokies have had more than just a few poor first quarter performances followed by playing great football thereafter. This theme and the level of play Virginia Tech football has exhibited has me optimistic about the upcoming contest on January 3. I fully expect the Hokies to keep the opposition fans on edge throughout the night.

Let's take a look at the Hokies' opponent, the Stanford Cardinal. Wake Forest is the only common opponent shared between the two teams this season. Each team slaughtered the Deamon Deacons, doubling their score in each respective game. The Cardinals play in the Pac 10 conference, soon to don the name Pac 12 with newcomer teams. To establish the caliber of the Stanford team, I start with analyzing their conference. Their conference includes the likes of the USC Trojans, Oregon Ducks, and UCLA Bruins. Historically, fans of the Pac 10 have griped of the college football commentary world consistently under-rating their conference, and this claim has some ground on which to stand. For example, in the 2008-09 bowl season, the Pac 10 cleaned up with a 5-0 record. But then in the 2009-10 bowl season, the Pac 10 went 2-5. If you trace back over the inter-conference play, you'll notice that the pendulum swings. This year, the Pac 10 has gone 11-9 in their inter-conference play. Considering their win percentage, they place fourth amongst conferences that had some team in the top 25 sometime this season. The ACC ranks seventh in this way. This year, Oregon is all the rage, earning a number two ranking and some weeks holding the number one spot. Oregon has handed Stanford their only loss. In all comparison, the Pac 10 stacks up as a tougher conference this season than the ACC. By that barometer, Stanford placing second in the conference while losing only to a team headed to the National Championship Game makes them a formidable opponent and the favorite to win on Jan 3.

Let's take a top-down look at the Cardinal. Stanford head Coach Jim Harbaugh took over the team in December of 2006 and has since steadily improved the program to reach their current BCS bowl bid. In his first season as head coach, his squad defeated a number one ranked USC, the favorite by 41 points. This season, Sanford has won most of its games by a definitive margin. Only Arizona State and USC handed them a win margin of less than a touchdown. In each of these games the Cardinal scored their winning points in the fourth quarter, which shows they can finish strong in a close game. Stanford exemplifies the West Coast offense by ranking second the Pac 10 in passing with 3076 yards on the season. They've put up 2532 rushing yards and also ranked second in the conference in that category. The Stanford defense ranks first in the Pac 10 allowing 2404 passing yards, 1515 rushing yards, ~18 points per game, and ~327 yards per game. Virginia Tech, on the other hand, doesn't have numbers quite as good. The Hokies have allowed 2591 yards and 1936 yards in passing and rushing respectively. On offense, the Hokies have generated 2628 and 2716 yards in passing and rushing respectively. And those numbers come from contests within a weaker conference. One caveat: the Hokies' contest against Boise State does make their non-conference schedule notably more challenging.

Now, let's turn to some individual elements within the Cardinal. Heisman candidate and quarterback Andrew Luck finished second to Cam Newton of Auburn for the trophy. Luck has broken the school's season record of touchdown passes with 28. He has completed ~70% of his passes this season, while throwing for 3051 yards. Standing at 6'4" and weighing in at 235 lbs., the Junior quarterback is no picnic to tackle. His offense has allowed only five sacks (of him) on the season. Luck has a lot of depth in his receiver core, but one clearly stands out from the rest. Wide receiver Doug Baldwin has caught for 824 yards and nine touchdowns this season. The Senior receiver will surely give trouble to Virginia Tech's corners. Other receivers, Ryan Whalen, Chris Owusu, Coby Fleener, Stepfan Taylor, and Griff Whalen each have 200+ yards in receiving, so Luck has other options if the Hokies can cover Baldwin. On the ground, Stanford really only has one go-to guy in Stephan Taylor. Taylor has amassed an 1023 yards in rushing this season. Luck himself holds the next most rushing yardage with 438. Anthony Wilkerson, the Freshman second string running back, has 409 yards on the season.

(Side Note--Here are some horrendous Andrew Luck puns from which I restrained myself from using in this post: "With Luck on their side", "When the Hokie defense blitzes, Luck will run out", "a quarterback standing 6'4" gives them all the Luck they need", "If the quarterback gets injured, they will be out of Luck." Well, I guess I didn't really restrain myself if I just used them, but you had fair warning to skip this part!)

On the Hokie injury front, Linebacker Lyndell Gibson injured his shoulder during the ACC championship game against Florida State. He underwent surgery and will take the next 6-8 months to recover. Redshirt fresham Tariq Edwards will take his place. This will add inexperience to the defensive squad that has spent most of this year maturing, and maturing quite well I might add. However, this could add a weak link to the chain, but I can only roughly speculate.

Overall, I think the biggest determining factors will lie in how well the Hokies defend the secondary. Standford's offense hasn't seen a ground defense quite like that of Bud Foster's, and I think they'll stop the Stanford run for the most part. But Stanford has a very deep and experienced receiver core that will probably have a few tricks up its sleeve for the Virginia Tech corners and safeties. Going the other direction, the only running game Stanford has faced that could measure up to that of Virginia Tech is Oregon, who rushed for 388 yards against the Cardinal. One or more of Ryan Williams, Darren Eveans, and David Wilson will in all likelihood make big gains on the ground. As for the Hokies' passing game, the Cardinal have also not faced anything like Tyrod Taylor combined with the Virginia Tech receiving core, with lots of experience of its own. While the Stanford defense without question will have strategized and drilled on how to contain Taylor, planning to do so makes for one thing while actually executing it with success makes for another. Taylor's passing game is not gong to go quietly in his last game in a Virginia Tech jersey.

And that brings me to my next point. Sadly, this game marks the last of Tyrod Taylor playing for the Hokies. Our program has
had the fortune of having some of the most dynamic and fun to watch quarterbacks. Michael Vick dazzled the college football world, Bryan Randall exceeded all expectations, and now Tyrod Taylor has given us quite a show as well. I remember the first game he took a snap, when he relieved Sean Glennon in the midst of suffering a shellacking against LSU. Through much of the seasons during which he split the spotlight with Glennon, he seemingly had a two-step thought process: (1) look for a pass and (2) when that fails, rush. That thought process has its limits, and while with it he showed athletic ability, it doesn't necessarily make for elite quarterbacking. I roughly place the time at which Taylor made a significant transition around the second quarter of the game against Nebraska of the 2009 season. He began to adopt the thought process of (1a) look for a pass, (1b) scrample to give the receivers time to make an opportunity for a pass, and (2) when those fail, rush. The insertion of step 1b is a big difference maker and has propelled Taylor into the realm of the best quarterback to come through Hokie football, especially considering that he played four years opposed to Vick playing two. And of course its also worth noting the breath of fresh air in a team leader that did not have the off field conduct issues of some of his predecessors. Tyrod Taylor, Hokie football shall miss and always remember you.

The numbers and statistics seem to give Stanford the edge, but I think there's a few other factors that could swing the pendulum in the Hokies' direction. While the Cardinal have made a big stride as a program this season, they have done so at a time when the Pac 10's typical power house, USC, is in the midst of an off season and dealing with the PR fallout from a scandal. USC's play in past seasons has elevated that of the entire conference. So the competition to get to this bowl is probably not as stiff as years past. Also, this will make for Harbaugh's first appearance at a BCS bowl game as a head coach, and it will be opposite BCS bowl veteran Frank Beamer. Stanford has some strong momentum, but the only conference champion they have met handed them a 21 point loss. The Hokies have strong momentum of their own, testament to their ACC dominance after a two-loss season opening. The statistics paint a very good picture for Stanford, but the differentiator doesn't always lie within the numbers. Let's hope that's the case on January 3!

LET'S GO HOKIES!

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