Happy Wednesday, oh great and wonderful college football fans. It’s been a while since I’ve had a post all about the statistics. Well, you are in luck today if you like that kind of thing (and who wouldn’t?). With the bowl games right around the corner, and it being time for a conference comparison, I tried to find a way to cut the data to show different things. So, 3 comparisons. First, all 11 (as a reminder, I count the Independents as a conference) ranked in order of performance against the 82 teams in the playoffs. Secondly, a slice of the same data using only the 82 teams that are in a bowl game. That means that James Madison (who didn’t qualify because they are in transition from FCS) and App St (who didn’t qualify because 2 of their 6 wins were against FCS foes) are not included, but Rice (who was 5-7 but qualified due to APR) is included. The third cut is the 49 teams (including JMU and APST) that are not going bowling. In each case, the conferences are ranked by winning pct against bowl-bound teams, both within and outside of their conference. The overall record is also for all games. However, the records against Power 5, Group of 5, and FCS all exclude conference games. Final point: Notre Dame is included in the Independents although they are the only Power 5 team. They are included in Power 5 numbers outside of the Indies.
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In this first chart, the parenthetical number next to the number of teams in each conference is the number of bowl games for that conference. From first to worst,
| Rank | Conference/ Teams | Overall | Vs Bowl | Vs P5 | Vs G5 | Vs FCS | Avg Rank |
| 1 | SEC/14 (11) | 106-64 (.624) | 56-57 (.496) | 9-6 (.600) | 24-3 (.889) | 14-0 (1.000) | 33.7 |
| 2 | Big 12/10 (8) | 71-51 (.582) | 40-47 (.460) | 7-3 (.700) | 10-2 (.833) | 8-0 (1.000) | 43.3 |
| 3 | ACC/14 (9) | 93-74 (.557) | 42-60 (.412) | 7-14 (.333) | 17-4 (.810) | 13-0 (1.000) | 45.7 |
| 4 | Big Ten/14 (9) | 96-74 (.565) | 39-62 (.386) | 5-6 (.455) | 19-3 (.864) | 8-1 (.889) | 41.9 |
| 5 | Pac 12/12 (7) | 81-65 (.555) | 31-56 (.356) | 4-7 (.364) | 12-3 (.800) | 9-0 (1.000) | 38.8 |
| 6 | Indies/7 (5) | 41-42 (.494) | 16-30 (.348) | 10-15 (.400) | 15-19 (.441) | 8-0 (1.000) | 91.7 |
| 7 | American/11 (7) | 69-64 (.519) | 28-53 (.346) | 3-14 (.176) | 12-4 (.750) | 9-1 (1.000) | 82.2 |
| 8 | Sun Belt/14 (7) | 88-80 (.523) | 29-61 (.322) | 6-13 (.316) | 14-11 (.560) | 13-0 (1.000) | 86.4 |
| 9 | Conference USA/11 (6) | 64-71 (.474) | 21-50 (.296) | 1-10 (.091) | 9-12 (.429) | 7-1 (.875) | 104.9 |
| 10 | MAC/12 (6) | 67-79 (.459) | 21-55 (.284) | 2-19 (.095) | 6-10 (.375) | 10-2 (.833) | 106.8 |
| 11 | Mountain West/12 (7) | 69-77 (.472) | 21-58 (.266) | 1-16 (.059) | 10-9 (.526) | 8-4 (.667) | 95.6 |
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It was interesting to me that the records against bowl (i.e., “good”) teams didn’t match up with the GCR average ranking by conference. That led me to the next question which was how good were the conferences if we only counted those teams going to bowl? Will the order change. For this one, I kept the conferences in the same order, however, next to the conference name is the number of bowl teams and a pct of the total teams in that conference. The number in the parentheses next to the Rank is the vs bowl team rank when just bowl teams are considered.
| Rank | Conference/ Teams | Overall | Vs Bowl | Vs P5 | Vs G5 | Vs FCS | Avg Rank |
| 1 (2) | SEC/11 (.786) | 91-43 (.679) | 49-38 (.563) | 9-3 (.750) | 19-2 (.905) | 11-0 (1.000) | 27.4 |
| 2 (5) | Big 12/8 (.800) | 62-36 (.632) | 35-33 (.515) | 5-2 (.714) | 9-2 (.818) | 6-0 (1.000) | 38.4 |
| 3 (4) | ACC/9 (.643) | 74-36 (.673) | 35-32 (.522) | 7-7 (.500) | 14-0 (1.000) | 8-0 (1.000) | 37.0 |
| 4 (3) | Big Ten/9 (.643) | 78-32 (.709) | 34-27 (.557) | 4-3 (.571) | 15-0 (1.000) | 5-0 (1.000) | 27.3 |
| 5 (1) | Pac 12/7 (.583) | 65-21 (.756) | 27-19 (.587) | 3-2 (.600) | 10-0 (1.000) | 6-0 (1.000) | 20.1 |
| 6 (7) | Indies/5 (.714) | 35-25 (.583) | 15-18 (.455) | 9-13 (.409) | 14-7 (.667) | 5-0 (1.000) | 81.2 |
| 7 (6) | American/7 (.636) | 56-30 (.651) | 25-26 (.490) | 3-8 (.273) | 10-1 (.909) | 6-0 (1.000) | 61.6 |
| 8 (9) | Sun Belt/7 (.500) | 56-29 (.659) | 21-27 (.438) | 4-4 (.500) | 10-5 (.667) | 7-0 (1.000) | 63.1 |
| 9 (10) | Conference USA/6 (.545) | 45-31 (.592) | 15-22 (.405) | 1-4 (.250) | 5-6 (.455) | 4-0 (1.000) | 84.8 |
| 10 (11) | MAC/6 (.500) | 43-31 (581) | 13-21 (.382) | 2-7 (.222) | 5-4 (.556) | 4-2 (.667) | 75.3 |
| 11 (8) | Mountain West/7 (.583) | 54-31 (.635) | 18-23 (.439) | 1-8 (.111) | 6-5 (.545) | 6-1 (.857) | 70.1 |
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Wow, not a single conference held on to their previous spot and the Pac 12 leaped to the top of the board. But of course in the GCR world, that kind of thing makes me think just a little more. We should take a look at the bowl teams. It’s a great honor and only 82 of the 131 (.626) of the teams qualify. It would be easy for the upper register to pull the non-performers up, especially when conferences have different percentages of bowl bound teams. While it is fantastic that all teams had at least half of their teams in bowl games, 3 conferences broke (.700). So, I thought a good way to see depth of a conference which should be a measure of overall strength would be to see how the cellar dwellers performed. Here’s that chart, in the same order now with the parentheses after the rank being the non-bowl team vs bowl team rank. Of note: all 3 teams in the SEC who missed a bowl missed by one game with identical 5-7 records. That means a couple of calls the other way could have produced 14 bowl teams but watch what happens to the Pac 12 and the Big Ten.
| Rank | Conference/ Teams | Overall | Vs Bowl | Vs P5 | Vs G5 | Vs FCS | Avg Rank |
| 1 (1) | SEC/3 (.214) | 15-21 (.417) | 7-19 (.286) | 0-3 (.000) | 5-1 (.833) | 3-0 (1.000) | 57.0 |
| 2 (2) | Big 12/2 (.200) | 9-15 (.375) | 5-14 (.263) | 2-1 (.667) | 1-0 (1.000) | 2-0 (1.000) | 68.0 |
| 3 (4) | ACC/5 (.357) | 19-38 (.333) | 7-28 (.200) | 0-7 (.000) | 3-4 (.429) | 5-0 (1.000) | 61.4 |
| 4 (7) | Big Ten/5 (.357) | 18-42 (.300) | 5-35 (.125) | 1-3 (.250) | 4-3 (.571) | 3-1 (.750) | 65.0 |
| 5 (9) | Pac 12/5 (.417) | 16-44 (.267) | 4-37 (.098) | 1-5 (.167) | 2-3 (.400) | 3-0 (1.000) | 65.0 |
| 6 (11) | Indies/2 (.286) | 6-17 (.261) | 1-12 (.077) | 0-2 (.000) | 1-12 (.077) | 3-0 (1.000) | 118.0 |
| 7 (8) | American/4 (.364) | 13-34 (.276) | 3-27 (.100) | 0-6 (.000) | 2-3 (.400) | 3-1 (.750) | 118.3 |
| 8 (4T) | Sun Belt/7 (.500) | 32-51 (.386) | 8-34 (.190) | 2-9 (.222) | 4-6 (.400) | 6-0 (1.000) | 109.7 |
| 9 (6) | Conference USA/5 (.455) | 19-40 (.352) | 6-28 (.176) | 0-6 (.000) | 4-6 (.400) | 3-1 (.750) | 129.0 |
| 10 (4T) | MAC/6 (.500) | 24-48 (.333) | 8-34 (.190) | 0-12 (.000) | 1-6 (.143) | 6-0 (1.000) | 138.3 |
| 11 (10) | Mountain West/5 (.417) | 15-46 (.246) | 3-35 (.079) | 0-8 (.000) | 4-4 (.500) | 2-3 (.400) | 131.2 |
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That’s it for now. Let me know what you think about this new analysis. Did it help understand or muddle the issue? Look for the FCS playoffs and the Army/Navy game coming this weekend. Until then, thanks for reading and especially for sharing with others, G
