Welcome back, sports fans, to the bittersweet last planned football post for the season. There are a bunch of conference changes coming up over the offseason as the P12 reloads and those conferences who will lose teams trying to keep their numbers up. Look for a complete analysis on that craziness when the basketball season is over. Then we will have our annual pre-season strength of schedule (SOS) review starting with the least-challenged and moving to the toughest conference for the 2026-27 season. Those will start around the end of May/early June.
…..
A lot of press in the last 6 weeks or so has been on how much the SEC’s luster has been tarnished. Certainly, going 4-10 (2 of those wins against other SEC teams) added to the discussion. Way back in September and October, we wrote about how the SEC wasn’t quite on top this season. A reader’s question on how an undefeated Texas A&M team was outside of the top 10 (it was a combination of playing an overall weak non-conference schedule and playing 7 of the bottom 8 of the SEC). Much of the talk has been based on the Big Ten winning the last 3 with 3 different schools – and that is a fantastic and difficult accomplishment – while the SEC has missed the last 3 finals. However one defines “recent”, other than the last 3 or 5 years, the SEC has won more championships and had more finalists – at least in the last 20 years or so. The tide may be turning, but the chickens haven’t finished hatching quite yet. Yes, the Big Ten had the top 3 spots in the final GCR (a first since we started our original ranking in 2011 when the SEC was in the middle of 7 championships in a row by 4 different teams), but does that mean they have the best conference?
…..
How does one define the best conference? We could do some sort of weighted average in which the middle-ranked teams carry the most weight thus reducing the impact of an outlier. Sagarin uses that method. We could keep it really simple and state the best conference is the team with the highest ranked worst team, because a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, except that a negative outlier could skew the results. At the GCR, because one of us is not very mathematically minded (that would be G who is more statistical than mathematical), we like to keep things simple. We simply take the mean of all teams – lowest average rank “wins”. This method does cause a problem with 2-team conferences like the Pac-12 and the Independents. If both teams have good years, they could earn best conference honors without facing a conference schedule or a championship game. If both teams have bad or mediocre years, there’s no others to bail them out. That is exactly what happened this year.
…..
Notre Dame and UCONN were a combined 19-6 without facing each other. They are an odd combination because the GCR classifies both as Independent, but ND is a Core 4 team and UCONN is not. Still, they averaged a 34.5 rank which is the lowest. The 2-team Pac-12 was just 9-16 (including going 1-1 against each other) and averaged an FBS worst 109.5 rank. Just to round out the possibilities for 2-team groupings, the two FCS indies were 12-12 and in the middle of the pack.
…..
Speaking of the FCS, let’s start with them. The table below is sorted by average rank of the conference from best to worst, similar to how we’ve shown the conference comparisons before. We added one more column, though. We’ve listed the number of teams from each conference that are in the FCS Top 25 followed by the number in the Bottom 10. The FCS indies had no team in either list – right down the middle. FCS Champions Montana St were joined in the Top 25 by just their rival Montana and no one else from their conference – but Portland St from the Big Sky was in the Bottom 3. North Dakota St, despite losing to eventual runner-up Illinois St, was the highest ranked FCS team. Add North Dakota and the Missouri Valley had 3 teams in the Top 25, but Murray St was in the Bottom 6. Does the championship or having the highest ranked team automatically make the conference the best or do we need to recognize the Portland St’s and Murray St’s equally? Clearly all teams count. We were surprised by the Pioneer League having the most Top 25 teams with 4 (none in the Top 13) with no corresponding Bottom Ten teams, putting them in a very respectable 4th place. The average wins column is a little misleading for the Ivy League. Nearly every other team in the FCS plays a 12-game schedule before the playoffs, but the Ivy plays a 10-game schedule. Playoff wins (especially for the Big Sky and Missouri Valley conferences) can skew the numbers as a comparison as well. We almost removed them, but they are interesting. When you see the Avg Rank of the BSOV at 218.0, remember there are 265 teams. Same applies for the Northeast’s Avg SOS of 225.7.
| Conf (Teams) | Record | Avg Wins | Avg Rank | Avg SOS | Best Team | T25/ B10 |
| Ivy (8) | 45-38 (542) | 5.63 | 174.8 | 171.1 | Harvard (9-2/126) | 3-1 |
| Missouri Valley (10) | 73-61 (545) | 7.30 | 180.2 | 165.5 | North Dakota St (12-1/108) | 3-1 |
| United Athletic (9) | 55-56 (495) | 6.11 | 188.3 | 195.0 | Tarleton (12-2/122) | 3-0 |
| Pioneer (11) | 64-67 (489) | 5.82 | 190.0 | 204.2 | Presbyterian (10-2/145) | 4/0 |
| Big Sky (12) | 78-74 (513) | 6.50 | 194.7 | 180.9 | Montana St (14-2/129) | 1/0 |
| FCS Indies (2) | 12-12 (500) | 6.00 | 196.5 | 175.0 | Sacred Heart (8-4/171) | 0/0 |
| Patriot (8) | 47-50 (485) | 5.88 | 197.3 | 211.0 | Lehigh (12-1/118) | 1/1 |
| Colonial (14) | 82-92 (471) | 5.86 | 200.4 | 209.6 | Monmouth (9-3/139) | 3/1 |
| MEAC (6) | 36-37 (493) | 6.00 | 204.2 | 214.8 | NC Central (8-4/165) | 0/1 |
| SWAC (12) | 70-75 (483) | 5.83 | 206.8 | 206.6 | Alabama St (10-2/135) | 3/0 |
| Southern (9) | 46-62 (426) | 5.11 | 209.1 | 210.9 | Mercer (9-3/164) | 0/2 |
| Southland (10) | 57-67 (460) | 5.70 | 213.0 | 202.9 | Steph F Austin (11-3/143) | 2/2 |
| Northeast (9) | 43-63 (406) | 4.78 | 215.0 | 225.7 | C Connecticut (8-5/177) | 0/1 |
| Big South/ Ohio Valley (9) | 48-61 (440) | 5.33 | 218.0 | 217.8 | Tennessee Tech (11-2/147) | 1/0 |
…..
When we look at the FBS, we have to double things up a bit. No Group of 5 (American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12, Sun Belt or UCONN) were in the final Top 25 and 9 of the 10 worst FBS teams were in those conferences (Oklahoma St was the exception). So, we have a Top 25/Bottom 10 for each of the FBS factions: the Core 4 (ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, and Notre Dame) and the Group of 5 (we really need to switch to 6 – oh well, next season). The Big Ten’s Top 3 teams averaged a 2.0 Rank, and they had 6 other teams in the Top 25 (including 23, 24, and 25), but they had 3 teams in the Core 4 Bottom 10 (Maryland, UCLA, and Purdue). All of those winning teams had to beat someone, right? The ACC, who had Miami FL in the final and an interception (or blocked punt) away from a championship, had 4 in the Top 25, tied for fewest with the Big 12, but they led with 4 teams (North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Syracuse, and Boston College) in the Bottom Ten of the Core 4. The SEC with all of its flaws and post-season disappointment, had 7 teams in the Top 25 (although none in the Top 6), but only Arkansas was in the Core 4 Bottom 10. We’ll come back to that in a moment.
…..
The Group of 5 (6) had every conference (short of the single independent) have at least one in the G5 Top 25 (even the P-12 had Washington St), and at least one in the G5 Bottom 10 (Oregon St). The Sun Belt had James Madison make the playoffs (first for a Sun Belt team) but only had Old Dominion at the top while ULM and Georgia St were at the bottom. The usually lowly MAC had 3 in the G5 Top 25 and only 2 in the G5 Bottom 10. The American had the best ratio of any FBS conference with 8 in the G5 Top 25 and just Charlotte in the Bottom 10. We are stressing these numbers not just because they are a new cut of the data, but rather to help explain the rankings. If we consider a Top 25 finish as a win and a Bottom 10 finish as a loss, the American was 8-1. Pretty impressive.
…..
Back to the Core 4 and staying with the win-loss consideration, both the Big Ten and the SEC were 6 wins above .500 (9-3 and 7-1, respectively), so the SEC would be ahead by percentage points (.750 to .857, respectively). Another way to look at it is two-thirds (12 out of 18) of the Big Ten was in the elite or negative elite – not a bell-shaped curve at all. The Big 12 had 6 out of 16 in the extremes. The ACC had 8 out of 17. The SEC had one-half (8 of 16), which is close to the Core 4 average of .514 (35 out of 68), and the highest “winning” percentage. Look at the table below and we see how that impacts the conference ranking. As you read it, remember there are 136 FBS teams.
…..
The SEC came in nearly 6 places better on average than the Big Ten. We could argue either side of the debate question, “does that make the SEC the better conference?” If we agree that mean Rank within a conference is the best metric, then we could support a yes – with the very strong caveat of the SEC did not have the best teams (the top of the Big Ten was ridiculously good this year) – the SEC from top to bottom was better than any other conference (refer to the earlier discussion on Notre Dame and UCONN). In fact, the Avg Rank difference between the SEC and the Big Ten is roughly the same as the difference between the Big Ten and the ACC (lowest rated Core 4 conference). The SEC also had the highest overall winning pct of any conference or group with more than 2 teams, despite the abysmal bowl/playoff record.
| Conf (Teams) | Record | Avg Wins | Avg Rank | Avg SOS | Best Team | T25/ B10 |
| Indies (2) | 19-6 (760) | 9.50 | 34.5 | 93.0 | Notre Dame (10-2/5) | 2/0 |
| SEC (16) | 125-83 (601) | 7.81 | 40.1 | 30.4 | Georgia (12-2/7) | 7/1 |
| Big Ten (18) | 137-97 (585) | 7.61 | 46.2 | 29.1 | Indiana (16-0/1) | 9/3 |
| Big 12 (16) | 115-87 (569) | 7.19 | 49.1 | 38.6 | Texas Tech (12-2/4) | 4/2 |
| ACC (17) | 120-100 (545) | 7.06 | 52.1 | 38.1 | Miami FL (13-3/6) | 4/4 |
| American (14) | 97-82 (542) | 6.93 | 83.0 | 85.6 | North Texas (12-2/27) | 8/1 |
| Mountain West (12) | 77-76 (503) | 6.42 | 89.6 | 103.3 | San Diego St (9-4/45) | 6/2 |
| SUN (14) | 88-92 (489) | 6.29 | 95.6 | 101.1 | James Madison (12-2/29) | 2/2 |
| C-USA (12) | 72-81 (471) | 6.00 | 99.6 | 107.1 | Kennesaw St (10-4/53) | 4/2 |
| MAC (13) | 71-92 (436) | 5.46 | 107.5 | 118.2 | W Michigan (10-4/51) | 3/2 |
| Pac 12 (2) | 9-16 (360) | 4.50 | 109.5 | 72.5 | Washington St (7-6/73) | 1/1 |
…..
That’s it for today and a wrap for college football this season. We will continue our basketball posts, so we ask that you tune in to them. Tomorrow we are going to talk about the new prediction model for the hard court. Thank you for reading and sharing with others. We would love to hear your comments and questions about today’s post (or any post), JoJo and G
Catching up on emails…
I was surprised to see the SEC ranked ahead of the Big 10, but you explained the math on that one. I was just as surprised to see the SEC 6 places ahead of the other three in the Core Four, though. I’m wondering how much Vanderbilt’s jump from bottom-dweller to near top swung the difference. They were way on the tail of the SEC normal distribution curve before I’m guessing.
You are correct, Carl, Arkansas was the worst team in the SEC, but the best worst team – less tail than other conferences