Those Big East teams look so good in this analysis because the rest of their conference is so dreadful. The fact that Auburn gacked up a hairball against South Florida helps too.
I don't buy it.
I have played around with numerous methods of ranking conferences by adding layers of abstraction to my analysis. I don't usually post the results here for two reasons:
- The results (this year and last) suggest that the SEC is the best conference, though by a much smaller margin than the media seem to believe. Based on the rep that I get for stats, this board likes to see stats that make the Buckeyes and the Big 10 look good; to hell with how it was calculated.
- The calculations are so complex that to explain what the numbers actually mean would put most people to sleep.
At any rate, my analyses show that the ACC is far and away the worst conference. The Big East and the Big 12 have good teams at the top; but they are otherwise bloody awful. The Pac 10 is over-rated. The Big 10 is a close second to the SEC.
Not accounting for match-up issues; I stand-by the fact that OSU and LSU are very closely matched and are a notch above the rest of the country.
But if USC ends up in the Rose Bowl, and is healthy; we may see a better match-up in the 'Grand-Daddy' than in the NC game.
