Which conference had the toughest schedule?

[jjp]

According to Sagarin?
SEC?
Big 10?

Nope, it was the Pac-10.

According to Sagarin, the pac-10 teams ranked 1-10 in Strength of Schedule!!! Unbelievable.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc06.htm

[damaniac]

[ QUOTE ]
According to Sagarin?
SEC?
Big 10?

Nope, it was the Pac-10.

According to Sagarin, the pac-10 teams ranked 1-10 in Strength of Schedule!!! Unbelievable.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc06.htm

[/ QUOTE ]

Well not really that surprising. If for whatever reason one decides that a lot of good teams are in one conference, that only gets reinforced as they play each other. College football is very insular, so that's almost inevitable.

[Riverman]

Yeah, his computer says its the best because he thinks so and plugs it into his formula.

It depends. Big Ten has a few really really hard games, SEC has alot of marginally tough games. Pac 10 is so overrated it's sick, and the Big East/ACC are complete jokes.

[MyTurn2Raise]

there was one conference that wasn't that insular this year despite playing 9 conference games....
the Pac10

They took on all comers out of conference



Big East was just as tough as the Big10 this year

[Riverman]

How can you possibly say the big east is as tough as the big 10? You keep saying it over and over again...give me some evidence!

[heater]

Pac 10 was 21-9 OOC this year. Some of their wins, in no particular order:

Arkansas
Nebraska
Notre Dame (should have been 2x)
Hawaii
Oklahoma
Minnesota
BYU
Nevada (finished 8-4)

Pretty impressive. Whether or not this means they are the best conference is debatable but it's easy to see why a computer would think so.

[capone0]

Pac-10 OOC is very strong atleast who they scheduled. I think similar findings have been done throughout the season.

Cal played Tennessse and Minnesota.

USC played Arkansas and ND and Nebraska.

Arizona played LSU, BYU (I think they are near top 25 in some polls, I could be wrong).

ASU played Colorado (nto very good)

Oregon played Oklahoma.

OSU played Boise State, and Hawaii.

UCLA played ND.

Washington played Oklahoma.

WSU played Auburn.

I don't think many other conferences can claim they played such a tough OOC schedule although the PAC-10 has also had it's fair share of joke games OOC.

[Riverman]

I would love to see some big 10/big east matchups. The defenses in the big east are an absolute joke.

[Case Closed]

[ QUOTE ]
I would love to see some big 10/big east matchups. The defenses in the big east are an absolute joke.

[/ QUOTE ]

You know, they have offenses now that can throw the ball. Sometimes if they are really good they can score enough points to make up for their lack of defensive skill. Just something to think about.

[MyTurn2Raise]

[ QUOTE ]
I would love to see some big 10/big east matchups. The defenses in the big east are an absolute joke.

[/ QUOTE ]

perhaps the offenses are that good....we saw what happened to the vaunted Buckeye and Wolverine defenses when they met...sort or resembled West Virginia-Louisville

we did have some bigeast-big10 matchups

Syracuse 31 @ Illinois 21
Uconn 14 @ Indiana 7
Rutgers 33 v Illinois 0 (Illinois didn't even get the ball across midfield [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img])
Iowa 20 @ Syracuse 13 2OT (Syracuse dropped what should've been a game winning TD pass in the last minute)
Michigan St 38 @ Pitt 23


looked pretty even from that





Let's see... Sagarin has the BigEast rated higher (#3) than the Big10 (#4)
Colley has the BigEast #1 overall
Billingsley has the BigEast #3, ahead of #4 Big10
Andersen/Hester has the BigEast #3, Big10 #4
Wolfe has the BigEast #3, Big10 #4

man....that is every single metric used for the BCS all independently coming up with the BigEast as stronger than the Big10


above and beyond that, I've watched over 2/3 of the conference games for both conferences. The BigEast is better IMO.





Just because the Big10 is full of crappy offenses does not mean its defenses are good.