Which conferences are the best in college football this year?
Over at SportsBlog, Brian advances the argument that the SEC is the best. As one data point, he points out that the Pac-10 are beating each other up and therefore giving each other losses.
That is not really compelling data. I looked at the interconference records so far, starting from Rich Tellshow’s data, and then eliminating Div I-AA results. Here’s what I see:
Wins | Losses | % | |
Big Twelve | 28 | 12 | 0.700 |
Big10 | 28 | 14 | 0.667 |
Pac Ten | 21 | 12 | 0.636 |
Big East | 18 | 11 | 0.621 |
Conference USA | 16 | 13 | 0.552 |
Southeastern | 16 | 13 | 0.552 |
Atlantic Coast | 11 | 9 | 0.550 |
Mountain West | 10 | 14 | 0.417 |
Independents | 8 | 14 | 0.364 |
Mid-American | 11 | 22 | 0.333 |
Western Athletic | 6 | 20 | 0.231 |
Sun Belt | 2 | 21 | 0.087 |
The evidence suggests that the Big12, Pac10, Big10 are doing fine this year, while the SEC is just an average performer.