The Ocho

A home away from home for the college football fan who's tired of the talking heads not knowing what they're talking about.

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Iron Conference - Which Conference Regins Supreme?

Every year, ESPN keeps track of how conferences are doing in the bowl games - which conference beats which, which conference beats no one, etc. While many take this as an indication of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each individual conference, I find it far more telling of the quality of coaches facing off in that particular bowl, and on what the bowl means to each team. Take, for instance, the Alamo Bowl. Lloyd Carr, relatively secure in his position and Michigan having gone bowling for pretty much my lifetime in a row, takes on Bill Callahan's Cornhuskers, with a hot seat and a year sans bowl behind them. Nebraska ends up taking that one (though note I thought the Wolverines would).

Despite my thoughts that it doesn't provide an accurate comparison, here are the results to date, by conference:

ACC: 3 (Clemson, BC, Va) - 2 (Miami, Georgia Tech)
Big 12: 4 (Oklahoma, Neb, Kansas, Missouri) - 1 (Colorado)
Big East: 0-1(Rutgers - sure was a better game than I thought the Scarlet Knights would have, though)
Big 10: 0-3 (Michigan, Northwestern, Minnesota)
CUSA: 2 (Memphis, So. Miss) - 3 (UTEP, UCF, Houston)
Independents: 1 (Navy)-0
MAC: 1 (Toledo) - 1 (Akron)
MWC: 1 (Utah) - 2 (BYU, Colo. St.)
Pac 10: 3 (Cal, ASU, UCLA) - 1 (Oregon - wow, Holiday Bowl deja vu)
SEC: 1 (LSU) - 1 (So. Carolina)
Sun Belt: 0-1 (Arkansas State)
WAC: 1 (Nevada) - 1 (Boise State)

So far, if you think the bowls are demonstrative, the Big 12 is the best conference, with wins over a Pac 10, SEC, Big 10, and CUSA team, with the sole loss coming to an ACC team. Aside from the Sun Belt (whose conference champion wins the right to lose a bowl game), the Big 10 is doing the worst, with 3 losses (though all to BCS conference teams).

There you have it, Iron Conference to date. Whose Conference will regin supreme? Who knows?

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