9 conference games vs 8 conference games. This is a much bigger deal than I think some people realize. With an extra conference game for each team in the Pac12, the Pac12 is guaranteed to bat .500 in those games. Compare that with what the SEC does with one less conference game (play a bunch of FCS schools). The SEC is virtually guaranteed to bat 1.000 in that week.
If the Pac12 did the same thing, it would effectively give the bottom 6 teams in the league one more win each. IIRC that would result in two more bowl eligible teams, and the worst teams in our conference would have finished the year with 5 losses. Tell me that doesn’t change the Pac12 is weak narrative quite a bit.
To put it a different way, Utah would have beaten those two ‘would be bowl eligible’ teams by a combined score of 97 to 22.
Yes, that one extra conference game has a big impact on how the Pac12 (and as a result our SOS) is perceived.
I think this advantage is finally starting to hit the attention of the average college football fan. If you’ve been watching Urban Meyer on the Fox Saturday morning show, he has been harping on this for weeks. He coached in leagues that play both 8 and 9 games so he’s pretty qualified to give his opinion on this.
Amen!
I love the 9 game conference schedule.
Completely agree. The conference schedules need to be harmonized. The CFP Committee needs to start penalizing the 8-game conference schedule; it is a big problem.
When commentators discuss Utah’s non-conference schedule, they should ALWAYS include a comment that Utah played 9 conference games. Essentially, one of Utah’s conference games (against a P5 opponent) should count as part of the non-conference schedule when comparing Utah to the SEC non-conference schedule. Suddenly, Utah’s (and every Pac-12 team’s) non-conference schedule becomes stronger.
I think this has become an even bigger issue this year. With so many teams with really similar resumes this year I’ve seen a lot more relevance given to “wins against teams >.500” “wins against power 5 teams >.500” and “wins against teams with more than x wins” all of these are heavily skewed when 75% of our games are against teams that will face each other instead of 67%. Maybe the biggest culprit is “win % of power 5 teams you’ve faced.” The more intraconference games you play the closer that number is to 500 with almost no regard to anything else.
You forgot one more piece of info in your analysis: The SEC has 14 teams, including some absolutely terrible teams. This means that the SEC’s good teams play each other less often, which means more wins for the top teams.
In order for the P12 to replicate an SEC schedule, they would have to drop down to 7 conference games to get the top teams to miss each other as much as Georgia misses Alabama, Auburn, etc.
The SEC WAS a great conference. Then they expanded and stayed at 8 games. Now? They aren’t any better than anyone else, they just play less good games.
Very true… Though I’m not sure how terrible those teams are (they still have some talented players), not having as many challenging games certainly helps to lighten the load.
To give it a little perspective, If Oregon State played the Western Carolina Catamounts last weekend instead of Oregon, they would be bowl eligible. If Colorado played the Western Carolina Catamounts last weekend instead of Utah, they would be bowl eligible. That’s two more teams from the PAC 12 playing bowl games. That is millions of dollars of unrealized revenue.
Great post – never thought about it like that.
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