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Basketball season kicks off on Sun, Nov 15, and I wanted to give you a quick preview of what to expect this season now that I’ve given up on football. Just kidding. This can still be a good season for the football team, and I’ll continue to blog about the Hokies even though I really didn’t want to last Thursday and Friday. So here we go with a controversial conference ranking.
Straight up, I’m tired of everyone shitting on the ACC conference saying it’s the worst conference in the league. What basis do you have to make this claim? Is it the fact that Duke, UVA, and Maryland lost to Richmond, William & Mary, and Middle Tennessee State? Or is it the fact that we have no national champion contender again? Maybe it’s because week after week, we beat ourselves? But really, the worst out of the 6 power conferences?
Well unlike these people that like to spread their speculative non-sense, I’m giving you the facts! Yes they are somewhat subjective (honest, I’m trying not to be), but the facts are still there. So let’s go over a few details before we dive right in.
First, I am not writing about the Hokies this week, because frankly I don’t want to. Last Thursday, they completely demoralized me. The Hokies did, not UNC (but as advertised their defense is very good). The whole team just looked bad, and there isn’t just one thing to blame. Let’s take a look at my Recipe for Success from last week: 1) No turnovers – two very costly fumbles that at first set the tone for the game, and then just ended it. 2) Limit the penalties – a pointless holding penalty cost us a TD, 3) Make them throw on us – they had 181 rushing yards and only 131 passing yards (although they did throw on us in the red zone for 2 TD), 4) Protect Tyrod – the line actually held its own against a great defensive front for UNC, yes it could have been better, but seriously Tyrod just throw the ball away instead of running around in the backfield for 10 seconds, 5) Big plays from Tyrod – he was only 11/23 for 161 yards and -8 rushing yards, and his longest play was a 22 yard pass. So there you go, that’s why we lost.
Ok, I lied, one more thing about the Hokies. The only thing that I liked about the game against UNC was Tyrod being a leader. Even if he made a few bad throws and danced around in the pocket a bit too much, he still drove us down the field on our big TD drives. And more importantly, I think, when Williams fumbled to basically seal the deal for UNC, Tyrod was the first to put an arm around him, walk him off the field, and encourage him. This is a favorable matchup against ECU this week and we should run all over them Marshall style. Hopefully Ryan Williams has recovered mentally.
Second, getting back on track, the best way I could think to rate conferences is record against other “good” teams. I started by looking at records against BCS at large teams. So I looked up every conferences record against the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-10, and SEC. I also sprinkled in a few other teams that we’ll say are BCS buster types. Those teams are Notre Dame, Houston, TCU, Utah, BYU, and Boise St. So we’ll consider only these as “good” teams. I considered Central Michigan and Navy, but after last week’s games I decided against it.
Third, another thing I tracked was inexcusable losses. What I mean by this is what we’ll call an “ACC loss” (see first paragraph). The ACC wasn’t the only conference doing this; just ask Colorado and the Big 12.
Finally, there are a few things I did not consider. I did not consider conference games. Does it matter that Washington beat USC, Illinois beat Michigan, or that Maryland somehow beat Clemson? I mean does that really make the conference worse? I also don’t consider national championship contenders. The past few years I might have considered it, but this is such a mediocre year in college football that I’m just tossing this out altogether. Another reason for this is because the SEC is about the only conference that has legitimate contenders this year in my opinion and I have them ranked 1st anyway. Texas can go out and play someone if they want consideration…
So without further ado, here’s my Controversial Conference Rankings!
1) SEC (7-5 against BCS, 1 inexcusable loss) – I hate to reward a team with my #1 ranking when it has by far the weakest out of conference schedule of any BCS conference, but you can’t overlook the fact that Florida, Alabama, and LSU are all ranked in the top 10, and that the winner of the 3 will play for the national championship. But after that, there are only a handful of good teams: South Carolina, Tennessee, and maybe Georgia, Ole Miss, or Auburn. Also, Florida and Ole Miss have yet to play another BCS team out of conference, and only Mississippi State has played more than 1. That’s just terrible… By comparison, every ACC, Big East, and Pac-10 team have played at least one non-conference game against a good opponent. Man up SEC!
Big Wins: Bama over VT, Auburn over WVU, Georgia over Arizona State, and Arkansas over Texas A&M.
Bad Losses: Tennessee losing at home to a UCLA team that hasn’t won a single game in the Pac-10 and an inexcusable loss for Vandy against Army.
2) Pac-10 (8-8, 1 inexcusable loss) – The gap between the Pac-10 and the SEC is closer than most people think. Could Florida and Alabama beat Oregon and USC right now? I’m actually not so sure. And unlike the SEC, the Pac-10 doesn’t have such a dramatic drop off. Cal, Stanford, Oregon State, and Arizona are all good teams. Plus Washington, Arizona State, and UCLA might be better than the likes of Kentucky, Mississippi State, and Vanderbilt. But Washington State is just atrocious. You know what else!? The Pac-10 has gone out and played 16 good opponents compared to 12 for the SEC with two less teams. I should have put them #1 just to send a message…
Big Wins: USC over Ohio State and Notre Dame, Oregon over Purdue and Utah, and UCLA over Tennessee in Knoxville. Yes I realized that this mostly only comes from 2 teams.
Bad Losses: Stanford’s loss to Wake Forest isn’t horrible, but Wake might not even make a bowl game, and Washington State lost an inexcusable game to Hawaii at home.
3) Big East (5-8, 0 inexcusable losses) – I guess you could argue that the way Cincinnati is playing, gives the Big East a national championship contender, but I’m not buying it. Yes they are undefeated, yes they have looked great doing it, but your signature wins are against Oregon State and Fresno State. And Fresno’s not even a state! But this is conference ranks. And the Big East more than anyone else has won the games they are supposed to, and don’t have any huge slip ups. They’re also going out and playing a lot of good non-conference games at 13. And with only 8 teams in the Big East they have more “good” non-conference games per team than any other BCS conference. That said they haven’t been against the best teams…
Big Wins: Cincy over Oregon State, and South Florida over Florida State. See those are the best of the 5 wins.
Bad Losses: The worst would be NCST giving Pitt its only loss. There are no inexcusable losses.
4) ACC (9-10, 4 inexcusable losses) – This is the point I’m getting to, the ACC isn’t afraid to play anyone! Year after year, the ACC plays the most non-conference games against BCS schools and good opponents. And when they do, they do alright. This year I would say there are probably 8 good teams in the ACC, which is more than any other conference with my biased counting (there might be 8 in the SEC as well). The ACC Coastal by itself is 6-3 against good non-conference teams! The problem this year is the massive amount of embarrassing losses from the likes of Maryland, Wake, UVA, and Duke. That’s what drops the ACC below the Big East in these rankings even with significantly more big wins.
Big Wins: Miami over Oklahoma, Florida State over BYU, Virginia Tech over Nebraska, Wake Forest over Stanford, UNC over UCONN, NCST over Pitt for its only loss, Georgia Tech over Mississippi State, and UVA crushing Indiana and giving them their biggest loss of the year. The ACC has the most big non-conference wins, but who cares about that right? The ACC sucks!
Bad Losses: So yeah here’s where it gets ugly. UVA losing to William & Mary and Southern Miss, Duke losing to Richmond, Maryland losing to MTSU, and Wake losing to Navy and Baylor (wouldn’t be too bad if Baylor had won a single conference game).
5) Big Ten (5-8, 1 inexcusable loss) – So looking at the Big Ten from afar you might say to yourself 5 wins, 8 losses, only 1 inexcusable loss, Iowa as a national champion contender, this is a good conference. That is far from true the deeper you dig. Their 5 wins are against Notre Dame, Arizona, Syracuse twice, and Iowa State. And while they only have 1 loss I deem inexcusable, they have 3 really bad ones on top of that. Throw in the fact that Iowa is a threat to lose every week, and this conference starts to look a little soft. Somehow 4 teams are ranked from the Big Ten! Getting ranked for no reason, now that’s Big Ten football!
Big Wins: Michigan over Notre Dame, and Iowa over Oregon State.
Bad Losses: Indiana getting killed by UVA, Syracuse beating Northwestern, Michigan State losing to Central Michigan, and the inexcusable Purdue losing to Northern Illinois.
6) Mountain West (5-10, 4 inexcusable losses) – I’m shocked myself! I ran the numbers and the Big 12 is actually that bad. No point in wasting time too much time on the Mountain West, but TCU won at UVA and at Clemson, Utah killed Louisville, and BYU beat Oklahoma. Also Colorado State stepped up and beat Colorado as well. Their bottom feeders have a lot of bad losses, so no need to dig into it, but just know the Mountain West won more games against good non-conference teams than the Big 12 and played more good non-conference games than the SEC, Big 12, Big Ten, and Big East. Props to the Mountain West and hopefully TCU busts up some of these teams in a BCS game.
7) The Texas Conference, wait sorry, Big 12 (4-10, 3 inexcusable losses) – It’s hard to believe how far the Big 12 has fallen. They are apparently the new Pac-10. And don’t get me wrong, I think Texas, Oklahoma, OKST, Texas Tech, and maybe even Texas A&M and Nebraska are all good teams, but they really haven’t shown it at all. I mean for a conference that was supposed to compete with the SEC for best overall, what happened? The only teams that won a good non-conference game were Oklahoma State, Kansas, Missouri, and Baylor. And just look below who those were against! And yes, that means Texas did not and will not play a good non-conference game all season. No wonder they’re undefeated…
All wins: These aren’t even that good, but anyway… Oklahoma State over Georgia, Kansas over Duke, Missouri over Illinois, and Baylor over Wake Forest. Everyone else played scrubs or lost! The conference’s 2nd best non-conference win was Duke!
Bad Losses: Kansas State is winning the Big 12 North and lost two of its first three games to UCLA and Louisiana-Lafayette, Colorado lost its first two to Colorado State and Toledo. And Oklahoma lost two games there were the favorite in against Miami and BYU.
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In summary, we shouldn’t play in a system that rewards teams for playing nobodies non-conference. Does Texas really deserve to be #2 when they have played weak non-conference games, and the good teams they have beaten haven’t performed this season? Oh well, with secret voting ballots, rewarding teams that will bring a lot of fans and revenue over teams that you know actually perform, and officials who make calls that seemingly benefit any championship contender, what do you expect? I mean everyone has made it completely obvious that no team outside of the SEC, Big 12, USC, or the state of Florida has a chance to win the national championship. Come on basketball! At least there’s a tournament there…
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