HOW TO JUDGE RELATIVE CONFERENCE STRENGTH

by Atlanta's original team on Jan 5, 2011 9:35 AM EST

Few college football fans would disagree with the premise that the best way to judge the strength of a football conference is the won / loss record. Unfortunately, without a college playoff system this will only take us so far.

No less a luminary than John Heisman was skeptical of things like margin of victory and out of conference records. His scheduling of Cumberland and the ensuing 222-0 score was his effort to illustrate a point he had been making about that for several years.

So what would an objective system be for evaluating the relative strength of a conference in lieu of a playoff system? I propose that we get some good Tech student who has the time (and we all know how much time they have) to run the numbers. The numbers would be collected by using something akin to the grading system that coaches use to grade each player after watching game films. Team grades could be determined from compiling the position grades. Obviously teams with high composite grades would also have good win / loss ratios. What would be eliminated would be the hype and bluster that comes out of conferences when a good team is upset by an average team or when a strong team mercilessly pounds a weaker sister by four touchdowns.

Once individual team strength is determined within a conference each team could be given a numerical rating. The following is a description of the rating system along with a brief interpretation.

POOR TEAMS - 0.0-1.9 Poor teams are those hapless creatures which have breakdowns in multiple phases of the game, scoring so low on so many positions that there is no possibility of the team winning consistently.

GOOD TEAMS - 2.0-2.9 Good teams generally have winning records because they have high scores in several key positions. They may have an athletic quarterback, a pro-caliber running back or a monster defensive line. However they may also have some glaring weaknesses such as a sub-par secondary that frequently gives up big plays or a special teams unit or place kicker who perform below average.

COMPLETE TEAMS - 3.0-3.9 Complete teams have the attributes of good teams but without any glaring weaknesses. In other words they may have one or two positions or areas with the highest grades a coach could give while the other areas of the team all score above average.

GREAT TEAMS - 4.00 Great teams border on the mythical but theoretically could be determined by identifying that 60% or more of the positions on the team receive grades as high as any other team in the nation. From defensive end to running back to safety to wide receiver to kicker these teams not only do not have any weaknesses they are in most areas as strong as any team in the nation. Great teams always have a chance to go undefeated.

Now if I were to offer my subjective opinion about say the relative strengths of say a conference like the ACC versus a conference like the SEC it would go like this. The SEC had perhaps two great teams this year -Auburn and Alabama. In my opinion it had one complete team -Arkansas. It had several good teams such as South Carolina, Mississippi State, LSU and Florida. The ACC had no great teams and no complete teams. Two teams, FSU and VA Tech, would in my opinion be on the upper scale of good teams, say in the 2.9 range. Unfortunately for both teams there were glaring weaknesses that showed up several times throughout the course of the season. Just off the top of my head it might be that the ACC had more teams in the Good range than did the SEC. However if one were to average the scores of the respective teams of the two conferences the SEC comes out ahead both because of the presence of complete teams and great teams, and because the poor teams probably score slightly higher overall than the poor teams of the ACC. For the record I would rate Georgia Tech a poor team this year, albeit at the upper end of the poor scale. Fix a few key areas of this team and Tech easily jumps into the Good range. Likewise if Florida State and Virginia Tech were to take care of a few of their weak areas they might jump into the Complete team category.

O.K., now all that is necessary for you to determine in an objective way the relative strength of different conferences is to punch in the numbers. Of course for all of us blow-hards that really would take the fun out of it.

Tweet Comment 10 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

And on paper Georgetown was so much better than 'Nova in '85.

I’m not a big playoff guy, but I have become distanced from the Bowl Season because it is so meaningless.

I agree with your SEC vs. ACC relative strength, but the SEC’s internal Win/Loss numbers are more revealing, and are based on games played (versus analysis of Georgetown’s strength with Ewing). Only two of 12 SEC teams didn’t make Bowls. While the traditional powers in the East stunk it up (Gators, nadlickers, Vols), the West was strong. Bama should have been ranked higher before 1/1/11.

In the end all we have is: LSU, Florida times two, Bama, and possibly Auburn to determine that the SEC is running the table by beating good to great opponents on the biggest stage year after year.

UCONN for the little East?
Whomever for C-USA?
MountainWesternAthleticConference? Boise and who else?
TCU? Great story, now let’s see you do that week in and week out vs. BCS level opponents.

In the end all we know is what we will know late on Monday night.

by DressHerInWhiteAndGold on Jan 7, 2011 12:26 PM EST reply actions

I am already convinced however

that we will not know too much after Monday night. I give as evidence exhibit A -Ohio State vs. Arkansas. Arguably Arkansas was as good as any team in the SEC. Take away a key injury against Auburn and who knows how that game would have turned out. Ohio State was likewise as good as the Big Ten produces. So what did an Ohio State win over Arkansas prove? Nothing.

Here’s why. Ohio State had an athletic quarterback in Pryor who was going to make his share of plays regardless of the opponent. Arkansas relied more on over all team strength, especially on offense, which was hurt by the long lay off. I attribute all of the dropped passes and other miscues to being rusty. These key blunders cost Arkansas the game. With a playoff system teams keep playing after the regular season and stay in rhythm.

Now comes Oregon and Auburn. Oregon’s highly tuned offensive system will be hurt the most by the five week / two month lay off, just as Arkansas was hurt. Auburn, like Ohio State, has an athletic quarterback who will get his plays regardless. I hope I am wrong but I could see this game being a series of what-ifs with the results not proving anything but only reinforcing people’s preconceived biases.

by Atlanta's original team on Jan 7, 2011 1:23 PM EST up reply actions

If you're going to preemptively decide that the game isn't a good data point...

…then you have to rank teams on resumes. Look who Auburn’s beaten: Alabama, LSU, Arkansas, South Carolina (twice), Mississippi State, and UGA. No conference has a murderers’ row like that (and Auburn didn’t play Florida) Who’s Orgegon beat? A very good Stanford team. That, plus USC and Arizona. The resumes do not compare.

I think Oregon has the players and schemes to give Auburn fits, but Auburn’s got the edge – and it’s a pretty big edge.

My point is this: if the relative merits of the SEC and other conferences will not hinge in part on the BCS Championship Game, you almost have to give the crown to the SEC before hand. The other conferences’ best hope walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

by first and thom on Jan 7, 2011 4:36 PM EST up reply actions

I hear you but

the problem is that the SEC gets over-hyped to begin with. Listen to the announcers every time an SEC team plays in a bowl. This year they started the chant of the SEC being better even before the SEC has won a single game. If you start with the premise that the SEC is better then it is inevitable that an SEC team’s schedule will always be harder than a team’s from any other part of the country.

I reminded that years ago Notre Dame would never play in a bowl game. Their argument was that they already played a national schedule of the best teams from around the country and playing one more game would not prove anything.

by Atlanta's original team on Jan 8, 2011 8:56 AM EST up reply actions

Of course luck helps

Clemson pushed Auburn all over the field and then managed to give the game away. But such is the nature of things when you are building a mythical national champion.

by Atlanta's original team on Jan 8, 2011 9:00 AM EST up reply actions

There's plenty we agree on

The SEC is overhyped. But, while ESPN may crown the SEC king before the season begins, ESPN cannot change the games that actually get played. ESPN might like UGA to have been good this year, but it wasn’t. But ESPN couldn’t pick Auburn to come out of nowhere and win it all. Nobody predicted Florida would be so bad or South Carolina to be as good as it was. Mississippi State surprised people, as did LSU.

And luck certainly helps – but luck must be random (as I recently wrote elsewhere on this site) or it isn’t luck. One game or maybe even one championship can be lucky, but five in a row suggests a non-random cause.

by first and thom on Jan 13, 2011 5:32 PM EST up reply actions

Yep, overhyped

and it was not just that the TV commentators were talking up the SEC when they thought Tennessee was going to beat North Carolina, it is the foregone conclusion before games are even played.

Had Oregon won the game these same commentators would still be saying the SEC is the best conference. To me that detracts from Auburn’s cinderella season. They had a remarkable run and it had nothing to do with the SEC. They had the luck (against Clemson for one) that any undefeated team needs and they rose to the occasion in games (against Alabama for one) that really tested them.

by Atlanta's original team on Jan 13, 2011 9:51 PM EST up reply actions

Still would have liked to have seen that championship game without a 36 day lay off.

by Atlanta's original team on Jan 13, 2011 9:52 PM EST up reply actions

Sorry to be so long-winded. I mostly agreed with what you had to say but I had a question. How would you rank South Carolina? My analysis was that they were in the good team range but not in the complete team range. Thus, Florida State could clean their clocks because Florida State was a good team with slightly fewer liabilities.

And yes, I rank Georgia, Tennessee and the others in the poor range, just not as poor as Tech this year.

by Atlanta's original team on Jan 7, 2011 1:29 PM EST reply actions