A little fuel to the "Pac-10 vs. everyone else" fire

[BigPapaVol]

BCS Championships are a pretty good measuring stick.

It's a flawed system but it's what we have for now.

I'm not an SEC homer by any means, but it is what it is.

And to pretend that spreading those around throughout the conference doesn't say something for the year in, year out strength of the conference is utterly stupid. One hit wonders don't regularly take the prize.
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[tnrunner13]

It's the same problem. Individual teams being good in one season does not say anything about the conferences top-to-bottom strength in that season.

With the statistic you quote, you could say that the SEC is good at getting a team into the NC game. But, as the recent Ted Miller article points out, the SEC has advantages for that built into how they schedule.

So, I think that you definitely have a strong argument for the SEC having a clever scheduling strategy that is effective at targeting an NC game birth. Of course, that comes at the expense of having more glorified spring games to watch.

Personally, I hope that changes and all conferences make an effort to make their schedules more challenging. The LSU vs. Oregon match-up for next year is a step in the right direction, imo.

you've made this point repeatedly throughout this thread and, every time, it makes less sense to me. how do you think these teams get good enough to have their national championship seasons? it's a product of having the best coaching, recruiting, and teams in the country. the SEC teams get to where they are by playing in the SEC. playing against the best one year only makes you better the next year. if the national champions from the SEC are only a product of clever scheduling and luck (or whatever reasoning you have), other conferences would have figured it out as well. it speaks volumes that the SEC has dominated the BCS era.

also, your head to head argument doesn't hold the amount of weight you attribute to it because the best of the pac-10 haven't been playing the best of the SEC. yea, the best team in the pac-10 is better than middle of the pack to bad SEC teams, but, from top to bottom, the pac-10 cannot logically make any argument about being close to the level of the SEC based on their recent inter-conference match-ups.

the point is, the best measuring stick for conference dominance is national championships and national championship appearances. the SEC wins and it's not even sort of close. a better argument would be who has been better over the past decade: the pac-10, big XII, or big 10?

 

[wheaton4prez]

Thanks for the discussion, wheaton. While I don't agree with some of Sagarin's methods or all of your opinions, I respect your thoughts and I think you make some pretty good points about OOC opponents and/or number of conference games. I really wouldn't mind the SEC going to nine conference games if we ever add more teams to the conference. I still think the SEC is the best on average from the top to bottom, I concede that it really can't be proven. I think the Pac-10 is a nice conference that could potentially match the SEC, provided that some of the middling and lower ranked teams beefed up. And I actually think that your best team this year may beat out our best team (I'll be rooting for the Ducks--they are probably my second favorite team in college football and I can't wait to make it up to Eugene for the 2013 matchup). It's actually a shame that the SEC and Pac-10 are so far apart and play so rarely, because I think some nice matchups could be made.

Absolutely. The respect is mutual. I think we agree on more than we disagree.

Definitely agree that it would be great to see more Pac-10 / SEC match-ups. I've really enjoyed getting to know more about UT and the fan-base due to the game this year.

you've made this point repeatedly throughout this thread and, every time, it makes less sense to me. how do you think these teams get good enough to have their national championship seasons? it's a product of having the best coaching, recruiting, and teams in the country. the SEC teams get to where they are by playing in the SEC. playing against the best one year only makes you better the next year. if the national champions from the SEC are only a product of clever scheduling and luck (or whatever reasoning you have), other conferences would have figured it out as well. it speaks volumes that the SEC has dominated the BCS era.

It's the product of having the best coaching, recruiting in the country for that one team in that one season. For example, Florida isn't as good now as they were when they won the championship last.

I think I've already answered the rest of your points in previous posts.

 

[MaehlMan]

To your point about coaching, I'd argue that the Pac-10 has 2 of the best 5 head coaches in America (Harbaugh and Kelly).

It's not like that affects the other 8 teams in the conference.

 

[FREE EARL]

To your point about coaching, I'd argue that the Pac-10 has 2 of the best 5 head coaches in America (Harbaugh and Kelly).

It's not like that affects the other 8 teams in the conference.

While we're on coaching. The Pac-10 doesn't have a coach with a NC title win. The SEC has 4, and they're working on their 5th.

Just saying.

 

[MaehlMan]

While we're on coaching. The Pac-10 doesn't have a coach with a NC title win. The SEC has 4, and they're working on their 5th.

Just saying.

Well, no, not a BCS title game win, but Erickson has two national championships.

 

[FREE EARL]

Well, no, not a BCS title game win, but Erickson has two national championships.

I forgot all about his wins at Miami. Good call.


1 coach.

 

[MaehlMan]

I agree that the SEC has more overall coaching strength. Wulff, Riley, Tedford, Kiffin, Neuheisel, and Stoops are all...mediocre.

 

[utvolpj]

I agree that the SEC has more overall coaching strength. Wulff, Riley, Tedford, Kiffin, Neuheisel, and Stoops are all...mediocre.

you're saying they're the best of the best? Please

 

[MaehlMan]

you're saying they're the best of the best? Please

What?

 

[milohimself]

I agree that the SEC has more overall coaching strength. Wulff, Riley, Tedford, Kiffin, Neuheisel, and Stoops are all...mediocre.

Riley? Duck fans and their short memory...

Mike Riley's name comes up every off-season for most sought-after coaches for a reason. He is the undisputed champ of doing more with less. Getting an under-funded program with little history in a podunk town like Corvallis bowling almost every year, let alone in the mix for the Pac-10 title once or twice a decade on average is pretty successful.

Tedford had a bad year. Look at what he's done with Cal. Don't let the fact that he left your program and stole Kevin Riley out from under your noses blind you from how far he's taken historically pitiful Cal.

Wulff inherited a team that probably couldn't win the Big Sky, let alone compete in the Pac-10. Stuff like that takes longer than the typical 3-4 year recruiting cycle to bounce back from. Wazzu has made Rose Bowls before, they can again. The jury is still out, and will be for a few more years. Same goes for Sark at UDub.

Stoops and Neuheisel, and likely Kiffin, though are all mediocre for sure.

 

[MaehlMan]

Riley? Duck fans and their short memory...

Mike Riley's name comes up every off-season for most sought-after coaches for a reason. He is the undisputed champ of doing more with less. Getting an under-funded program with little history in a podunk town like Corvallis bowling almost every year, let alone in the mix for the Pac-10 title once or twice a decade on average is pretty successful.

Tedford had a bad year. Look at what he's done with Cal. Don't let the fact that he left your program and stole Kevin Riley out from under your noses blind you from how far he's taken historically pitiful Cal.

Wulff inherited a team that probably couldn't win the Big Sky, let alone compete in the Pac-10. Stuff like that takes longer than the typical 3-4 year recruiting cycle to bounce back from. Wazzu has made Rose Bowls before, they can again. The jury is still out, and will be for a few more years. Same goes for Sark at UDub.

Stoops and Neuheisel, and likely Kiffin, though are all mediocre for sure.

Well, Riley and Tedford both were mediocre coaches this year. I agree, they've done remarkable things with both of their programs.

Honestly, I doubt that Wulff is the answer at WSU. I like him. He seems like a passionate guy that cares for his players. I don't know if he's much of a strategizer or play-caller, though.

By the way, I don't miss Tedford, and I'm glad we never had Kevin Riley (I know, he's an Oregonian and was highly sought after at the time).

 

[tnrunner13]

It's the product of having the best coaching, recruiting in the country for that one team in that one season. For example, Florida isn't as good now as they were when they won the championship last.

I think I've already answered the rest of your points in previous posts.

you haven't answered anything. you have restated your point, which has been proven incorrect time and time again. you have yet to provide any logical reasoning to back your argument up. all you do is say that SEC teams winning the national championship is a result of it being each specific championship winning team's year. you have made the argument that because florida has dropped off, the rest of the SEC must not be as good as many of us are making it out to be (or some asinine point just the same). yes, florida had a bad year compared to where they were when tebow was there. that does not, however mean the SEC isn't the best conference. i maintain that you cannot possibly disprove the SEC's position as best conference because of it's dominance in BCS NCs. it absolutely is a result of the strength of the conference.

yes, when a team wins the title a huge part of it is that it was that team's year. but how do you think those teams get into position to have their years so frequently in the SEC? it is because year in and year out the SEC is competing with the best in the country and it helps to make teams better for the future. yes, there will be teams that drop off after their title runs due to graduation, coaching turnover, etc. this does not mean, however that any given year a team winning is solely because it was that team's year. every championship team is a result of years' of work. the fact that half the SEC is has managed this (without having ONLY one or two dominant teams like the pac-10 with USC and oregon the past two years), is indisputable evidence that the SEC has been the absolute best conference in the BCS era.

 

[FREE EARL]

you haven't answered anything. you have restated your point, which has been proven incorrect time and time again. you have yet to provide any logical reasoning to back your argument up. all you do is say that SEC teams winning the national championship is a result of it being each specific championship winning team's year. you have made the argument that because florida has dropped off, the rest of the SEC must not be as good as many of us are making it out to be (or some asinine point just the same). yes, florida had a bad year compared to where they were when tebow was there. that does not, however mean the SEC isn't the best conference. i maintain that you cannot possibly disprove the SEC's position as best conference because of it's dominance in BCS NCs. it absolutely is a result of the strength of the conference.

yes, when a team wins the title a huge part of it is that it was that team's year. but how do you think those teams get into position to have their years so frequently in the SEC? it is because year in and year out the SEC is competing with the best in the country and it helps to make teams better for the future. yes, there will be teams that drop off after their title runs due to graduation, coaching turnover, etc. this does not mean, however that any given year a team winning is solely because it was that team's year. every championship team is a result of years' of work. the fact that half the SEC is has managed this (without having ONLY one or two dominant teams like the pac-10 with USC and oregon the past two years), is indisputable evidence that the SEC has been the absolute best conference in the BCS era.

Dude, it's "luck" and "clever scheduling". Apparently, the other 108 FBS programs haven't yet caught on. lol:

 

[wheaton4prez]

you haven't answered anything. you have restated your point, which has been proven incorrect time and time again. you have yet to provide any logical reasoning to back your argument up. all you do is say that SEC teams winning the national championship is a result of it being each specific championship winning team's year. you have made the argument that because florida has dropped off, the rest of the SEC must not be as good as many of us are making it out to be (or some asinine point just the same). yes, florida had a bad year compared to where they were when tebow was there. that does not, however mean the SEC isn't the best conference. i maintain that you cannot possibly disprove the SEC's position as best conference because of it's dominance in BCS NCs. it absolutely is a result of the strength of the conference.

yes, when a team wins the title a huge part of it is that it was that team's year. but how do you think those teams get into position to have their years so frequently in the SEC? it is because year in and year out the SEC is competing with the best in the country and it helps to make teams better for the future. yes, there will be teams that drop off after their title runs due to graduation, coaching turnover, etc. this does not mean, however that any given year a team winning is solely because it was that team's year. every championship team is a result of years' of work. the fact that half the SEC is has managed this (without having ONLY one or two dominant teams like the pac-10 with USC and oregon the past two years), is indisputable evidence that the SEC has been the absolute best conference in the BCS era.

I've answered your points with a logical argument. Nobody has "proven" that I'm incorrect.

Top to bottom strength of a conference is just that, how good all of the teams are, added up. Cherry picking the best team from each year, regardless of how the rest of them add up is not a measurement of top-to-bottom strength either in a given year or a stretch of years.

Having several different NC champs could mean that those teams were good in those years and the rest sucked. The sum of the conference then would not be very good. I'm not saying that the rest of the conference did suck for the SEC in those years. Just that the record of getting a team to the NC game is not the barometer of conference strength that you think it is.

 

[FREE EARL]

I've answered your points with a logical argument. Nobody has "proven" that I'm incorrect.

Top to bottom strength of a conference is just that, how good all of the teams are, added up. Cherry picking the best team from each year, regardless of how the rest of them add up is not a measurement of top-to-bottom strength either in a given year or a stretch of years.

Having several different NC champs could mean that those teams were good in those years and the rest sucked. The sum of the conference then would not be very good. I'm not saying that the rest of the conference did suck for the SEC in those years. Just that the record of getting a team to the NC game is not the barometer of conference strength that you think it is.

And to pretend that spreading those around throughout the conference doesn't say something for the year in, year out strength of the conference is utterly stupid. One hit wonders don't regularly take the prize.
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If having 4 different NC's from a single conference in a 5 year span isn't reflective of top to bottom conference strength, I honestly couldn't tell you what is. That argument is straight garbage, and regurgitating that trash as if it has any kind of merit warrants...

 

[ThatVolGuy]

Having several different NC champs could mean that those teams were good in those years and the rest sucked. The sum of the conference then would not be very good. I'm not saying that the rest of the conference did suck for the SEC in those years. Just that the record of getting a team to the NC game is not the barometer of conference strength that you think it is.

This is the only possible way that you could argue the SEC's run of BCS championships is somehow not indicative of a very strong conference, and it's still lame. You are grasping at straws. Heck, in the part I bolded, you diluted your own argument for us.

When nearly half of a 12-team conference has been to the BCS championship game, I think a little more than luck is involved.

 

[tnrunner13]

This is the only possible way that you could argue the SEC's run of BCS championships is somehow not indicative of a very strong conference, and it's still lame. You are grasping at straws. Heck, in the part I bolded, you diluted your own argument for us.

When nearly half of a 12-team conference has been to the BCS championship game, I think a little more than luck is involved.

we're also cheating with our scheduling... or something like that. trust wheaton, he knows.

 

[wheaton4prez]

If having 4 different NC's from a single conference in a 5 year span isn't reflective of top to bottom conference strength, I honestly couldn't tell you what is. That argument is straight garbage, and regurgitating that trash as if it has any kind of merit warrants...

Here is how my argument is not trash and is proven mathematically:

Lets assume that each teams strength is measured by a number between 0 and 1 with 1 being the best and the NC Champ. The conference strength is the average of all teams strengths.

Conference A strengths:

Team 1 - 1
Team 2 - .8
Team 3 - .7
Team 4 - .5
Team 5 - .2
Average - .64

Conference B strengths:

Team 1 - .8
Team 2 - .8
Team 3 - .7
Team 4 - .6
Team 5 - .4
Average - .66

As you can see, it would be very easy for a conference that doesn't have the best team to still be stronger from top to bottom.

A given year where an SEC team wins the NC game is not an indication of top to bottom conference strength. Saying that different teams making it in different years means they are stronger is like saying the .2 above should be counted as a .8 because they might be a 1 in the future. They either were or they weren't each season. They don't get to be 1s forever once their teams goes all the way in the past.

How many times a team actually is good over a time-span must be part of the measurement for it to be sound mathematically.

This is the only possible way that you could argue the SEC's run of BCS championships is somehow not indicative of a very strong conference, and it's still lame. You are grasping at straws. Heck, in the part I bolded, you diluted your own argument for us.

I didn't dilute anything. I clarified the same position that I've made from the beginning since some people seem to be taking it as something that it's not.

I'm glad that you are now seeing that there is indeed a way for SEC teams to have won those titles without it meaning that the SEC is the top to bottom best conference.

When nearly half of a 12-team conference has been to the BCS championship game, I think a little more than luck is involved.

Who said luck had anything to do with it?

we're also cheating with our scheduling... or something like that. trust wheaton, he knows.

I don't think it's cheating. In fact, I've written that I think it's smart and that I don't blame the SEC given the system we've been given to play in. I put the blame on the BCS system that rewards scheduling cupcakes, more home games, not traveling and fewer conference games.

 

[FREE EARL]

Here is how my argument is not trash and is proven mathematically:

Lets assume that each teams strength is measured by a number between 0 and 1 with 1 being the best and the NC Champ. The conference strength is the average of all teams strengths.

Conference A strengths:

Team 1 - 1
Team 2 - .8
Team 3 - .7
Team 4 - .5
Team 5 - .2
Average - .64

Conference B strengths:

Team 1 - .8
Team 2 - .8
Team 3 - .7
Team 4 - .6
Team 5 - .4
Average - .66

As you can see, it would be very easy for a conference that doesn't have the best team to still be stronger from top to bottom.

A given year where an SEC team wins the NC game is not an indication of top to bottom conference strength. Saying that different teams making it in different years means they are stronger is like saying the .2 above should be counted as a .8 because they might be a 1 in the future. They either were or they weren't each season. They don't get to be 1s forever once their teams goes all the way in the past.

How many times a team actually is good over a time-span must be part of the measurement for it to be sound mathematically.



I didn't dilute anything. I clarified the same position that I've made from the beginning since some people seem to be taking it as something that it's not.

I'm glad that you are now seeing that there is indeed a way for SEC teams to have won those titles without it meaning that the SEC is the top to bottom best conference.



Who said luck had anything to do with it?



I don't think it's cheating. In fact, I've written that I think it's smart and that I don't blame the SEC given the system we've been given to play in. I put the blame on the BCS system that rewards scheduling cupcakes, more home games, not traveling and fewer conference games.

 

[BigPapaVol]

your mathematical hypothetical is cute, for one season or if one team was dominating the conference. However comma, that isn't remotely the case.
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[HawaiiVol]

Those numbers look like the PAC-10 when USC was the only remotely good team. Replace the .8's with .4's and lower and it'd be perfect.

In wheaton's world, the PAC-10 is the indisputable king of conferences, for everyone else in the US, the SEC is the best.

 

[SEC Nightmare]

Head to head to Pac 10 hasn't had any issues with the SEC

 

[MaehlMan]

Those numbers look like the PAC-10 when USC was the only remotely good team. Replace the .8's with .4's and lower and it'd be perfect.

In wheaton's world, the PAC-10 is the indisputable king of conferences, for everyone else in the US, the SEC is the best.

Wheaton has said many times that the SEC is the best conference.

 

[HawaiiVol]

Wheaton has said many times that the SEC is the best conference.

Could have fooled me with his Doctorate Theses(sp?) trying to explain why they aren't...