Wow. This is a damn good conference.

[CincyUte]

Oregon State is down right now, but everybody else is pretty scary in their own way.  Whoever ends up winning this thing will have to survive a gauntlet.

Meanwhile, you look around at all the other P5s and they each have multiple crappy teams.  

It sure would be great if we could play Kentucky or Vanderbilt and count it as a conference win.  Or Rutgers or Boston College or Kansas or Iowa State.  Or pretty much anybody in the ACC-Coastal division.  But no, we have to play good teams every single week.  

It’s crazy.  I love it–but it’s crazy.
 

[Warrior Ute]

This made me wonder how to look at the relative strength of conferences and how challenging the average season would be.  I thought about quintiles as an easy way to look at the strengths of teams.  There
are 128 teams in the FBS.  The two upper quintiles would be about a half a standard deviation above the median strength.  I know that this isn’t perfect but it creates an interesting way to view teams. 

I used Massey Ratings to consider relative strength. The top two quintiles (1-51) would be above average to elite teams. The bottom 3 quintiles would be average to poor teams.

Conference                                     Number Lower                                     Percent Lower

BIG 10                                     7                                            58%

BIG 12                                     5                                            50%

ACC                                         5                                            36%

SEC                                         4                                             28%

PAC-12                                   2                                             17%

 

When we add in that our conference plays more in conference games than some other conferences our likelihood of facing an above average team is even greater. (Currently 83%) This could explain why the PAC-12 beats itself up so much. 

It does make for an exciting season.  Every game is a big game and very few are against average or below average teams.

[UTE98]

You start talking about statistical linear regression analysis, probabilities and more statistical quantitative analysis and I’m gonna start calling your number. 867-5309

My daughters rightfully tell me how creepy this video is… LOL

[Author]

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