Bumped...this is a great breakdown of the records! - Paragon
Back in August, I took a look at OOC scheduling and its impact on overall conference record and perception. I predicted that SEC will have a better overall record due to its scheduling OOC policies.
Now its time to revisit and see how the conferences have actually performed.
This was my prediction for overall conference record and average W/L record(slightly different from the original version due to omission of conference championship games and Cinci @ Hawaii matchup).
| W | L | AV.W | AV.L | W% | |
| Big Ten | 77.25 | 54.75 | 7.02 | 4.98 | 0.585 |
| SEC | 85.25 | 60.75 | 7.10 | 5.06 | 0.584 |
| Big-12 | 84.75 | 61.25 | 7.06 | 5.10 | 0.580 |
| Big East | 55.25 | 41.75 | 6.91 | 5.22 | 0.570 |
| ACC | 80.75 | 65.25 | 6.73 | 5.44 | 0.553 |
| Pac-10 | 64.25 | 56.75 | 6.43 | 5.68 | 0.531 |
Here is the actual outcome:
| W | L | AV.W | AV.L | W% | Delta | |
| Big-12 | 87 | 59 | 7.25 | 4.92 | 0.596 | 1.54% |
| SEC | 86 | 60 | 7.17 | 5.00 | 0.589 | 0.51% |
| ACC | 86 | 60 | 7.17 | 5.00 | 0.589 | 3.60% |
| Big East | 57 | 40 | 7.13 | 5.00 | 0.588 | 1.80% |
| Big Ten | 76 | 56 | 6.91 | 5.09 | 0.576 | -0.95% |
| Pac-10 | 59 | 62 | 5.90 | 6.20 | 0.488 | -4.34% |
The predicted W/L record is very close to actual (except for Pac-10 and ACC). The numbers show what "West Coast / Pac-10" homers have been crying about for a long time - Big-12/SEC pad their schedules with patsies and create an appearance of a tough league. How many SEC teams benefitted from weak OOC scheduling?
Another conclusion (something we knew about for a long time) - Pac-10 sucked this year. The winning percentage delta is -4.34%. The conference ended up with a losing record (only BCS conference to do so). No question about it - Pac-10 was weak this year. However, many media clowns fail to realize that Pac-10 starts with a disadvantage because of the 9th conference game. And even if it performs ok in the OOC games, it will still have a lower winning percentage than SEC or Big-12.
If we sort the conferences by over/unde-rachievement factor (delta), we'd get the following conference rankings:
| W | L | AV.W | AV.L | W% | Delta | |
| ACC | 86 | 60 | 7.17 | 5.00 | 0.589 | 3.60% |
| Big East | 57 | 40 | 7.13 | 5.00 | 0.588 | 1.80% |
| Big-12 | 87 | 59 | 7.25 | 4.92 | 0.596 | 1.54% |
| SEC | 86 | 60 | 7.17 | 5.00 | 0.589 | 0.51% |
| Big Ten | 76 | 56 | 6.91 | 5.09 | 0.576 | -0.95% |
| Pac-10 | 59 | 62 | 5.90 | 6.20 | 0.488 | -4.34% |
What? ACC is #1? What a joke, right? Nope... Actually a number of computers agree with me. If you take Sagarin's rankings, ACC does come out to be #1. In fact, my rankings are nearly identical to Sagarin's with exception of Big East. Why is ACC #1? They won a few away games vs BCS opponents (including 3-1 vs the SEC in the final weekend) and didn't lose many games that they were supposed to win easily. Pac-10 was hurt by its miserable showing against MWC.
The bottomline, media pundits should pay more attention to the scheduling factor when talking about conference strength. Don't assume SEC and Big-12 are the kings (although B12 was very good this year) just because 10 teams start 4-0. Unfortunately, media isn't very number or analysis savvy so I expect to continue to see more hype and less substance going forward. Especially on CBS.
