The Best Conference? Victory Margins Say SEC Tops; Pure Results Give Pac-12 No. 1

The BCS banned the use of victory margins in college rankings more than decade ago, resulting in the New York Times (see story here) replacing two other computer services in the BCS ratings. We let the reader decide–offering a “Method 1” without victory margins, which shows the Pac-12 as the best conference in Week 1 (see this post). When victory margins are included in our “Method 2,” Tennessee secured a No. 1 ranking for the SEC with a median score of 26 in the system explained here, while Baylor’s blow out of SMU left the Big 12 a close second at 24. The Big Ten in a distant third place at 8, followed by the Pac-12, which was knocked down three spots from their Method 1 ranking due to closer-than-expected wins.

For advocates of victory margins, not including them is the equivalent to awarding a “participation trophy.” If a team goes out and proves they are 60 points better than another team–fine. For others, a the BCS system in the early years included bad sportsmanship as Virginia Tech and Florida rolled up enormous victory margins against weak opponents to move up in the rankings and qualify for the BCS championship. On the flip side, victory margins also reward teams and conferences for excellent showings against great teams–which is why the Big 12 benefits greatly this week from West Virginia and Oklahoma State coming close to knocking off the No. 1 and 2 teams in the country on the same day. In Method 2 those games were both great showings for the conference by earning scores of “24” and “13” (0 is an average game in Method 2). In Method 1, the “close but no cigar” analogy says a loss is a loss and the Big 12 was only 3-2 for the weekend against other FBS schools.

In Method 1, the Pac-12 gets credit for going on the road to win games as far apart as Charlottesville to the east and Hawaii to the west, with a big upset by Cal of Northwestern in Illinois. In Method 2 every Big 12 performance of the week was impressive, while the Pac-12 had weak (below 0) performances in four of seven games. In that system the narrow margins of victory against weak teams (17-16 Washington over Hawaii), only one offensive score by UCLA in a narrow win at Virginia, Colorado’s loss to Colorado State, and Washington State being upset by Rutgers. Those kept the median score low despite the very impressive margins rolled up by Cal, USC, and Arizona on a day that neither Oregon or Stanford was in action against other FBS schools.

So pick your poison–if you want Victory Margins included, the SEC was No. 1 and Big 12 right behind at No. 2. If you do not want them included, then the Pac-12 was No. 1 followed by the SEC. Below are the ratings based on Method 2, with slight adjustments for Method 1. Below that are all of the team results and the Game Score they earned their conference in Week 1.

Rnk	Conference	Median	Average	Method1 – Wins
1	SEC	26	15	2
2	BIG 12	24	16	4
3	BIG TEN	8	10	3
4	PAC12	-3	11	1
5	ACC	-4	-1	5
6	AMERICAN ATHL	-12	-3	7
7	CONFERENCE USA	-13	-7	6
8	MID-AMERICAN	-9	-17	10
9	SUN BELT	-13	-22	9
10	MOUNTAIN WEST	-20	-11	8

The following is the actual conference score for each game played, starting from the most impressive performance by a conference team (for the American Athletic, Temple’s 30-point win over Vanderbilt when given only a 9 percent chance of winning) to the worst performance (Houston being stunned by UTSA). The number to the far left is the margin of victory, followed by the conference team, their chance of winning the game, their opponent and the conference that team is in, the predicted margin of the average FBS team if they had the same opponent in the same venue (“Diff” means the average team loses by 13 at Vandy), how good the team is in relation to the conference (Temple is 4 points worse than the average CUSA team). Finally, the number to the right indicates the overall ranking based on adding up the other numbers in the same row.  

The overall average Rating is below zero because of very low ratings against BYU and Notre Dame this week for two teams.

Res	AMERICAN ATHL	chance	Opponent	Conf	Diff	ConfRnk	Rate
30	Temple	9%	Vanderbilt	SEC	13	4	48
-2	UCF	56%	Penn St	Big 10	5	-12	-9
-25	Connecticut	17%	BYU	Ind	5	5	-15
-20	Houston	74%	UT San Antonio	CUSA	-8	-7	-35
Sun	SMU	6%	Baylor	Big 12	22	0
		1.62	almost 2-3				-3
	ACC
-8	Virginia	6%	UCLA	Pac 12	18	13	23
6	Florida St	69%	Oklahoma St	Big 12	20	-23	3
1	NC State	76%	Ga Southern	SB	-18	13	-4
13	Boston College	94%	Massachusetts	MAC	-23	5	-5
-7	Wake Forest	69%	ULM	SB	-7	7	-7
-24	Clemson	48%	Georgia	SEC	19	-11	-17
		3.62	almost 4-2				-1
	BIG TEN
48	Nebraska	85%	FL Atlantic	CUSA	-9	-3	36
3	Rutgers	19%	Washington St	Pac 12	8	11	22
38	Michigan	98%	Appalachian St	SB	-24	-3	11
2	Penn St	44%	UCF	Amer	7	0	9
17	Ohio St	81%	Navy	Ind	2	-11	8
-4	Wisconsin	41%	LSU	SEC	20	-10	5
9	Purdue	84%	W Michigan	MAC	-26	16	-1
-7	Northwestern	77%	California	Pac 12	-9	1	-14
		5.29	at least 5-3				10
	BIG 12
31	Texas	86%	North Texas	CUSA	-4	-2	25
-10	West Virginia	7%	Alabama	SEC	25	9	24
-6	Oklahoma St	31%	Florida St	ACC	28	-10	13
32	Oklahoma	99%	Louisiana Tech	CUSA	-20	-9	3
45	Baylor	94%	SMU	Amer	-7	-8	30
		3.17	at least 3-2				19
	Conference USA
38	UAB	66%	Troy	SB	-13	8	33
28	W Kentucky	33%	Bowling Green	MAC	0	-6	22
20	UT San Antonio	26%	Houston	Amer	5	-6	19
7	UTEP	69%	New Mexico	MWC	-13	9	3
-32	Louisiana Tech	1%	Oklahoma	Big 12	22	5	-4
15	Marshall	94%	Miami OH	MAC	-26	-11	-22
-31	Rice	9%	Notre Dame	Ind	16	-8	-23
-49	Southern Miss	99%	Mississippi St	SEC	12	12	-24
-31	North Texas	14%	Texas	Big 12	15	-11	-27
-48	FL Atlantic	15%	Nebraska	Big 10	11	-6	-43
		4.26	at least 4-6				-7
	MID-AMERICAN
-15	Miami OH	6%	Marshall	CUSA	-4	16	-3
-9	W Michigan	16%	Purdue	Big 10	-8	11	-6
-23	Massachusetts	6%	Boston College	ACC	-2	13	-12
-28	Bowling Green	67%	W Kentucky	CUSA	-3	-16	-47
		0.95	almost 1-3				-17
	MOUNTAIN WEST
-1	Hawaii	5%	Washington	Pac 12	15	6	20
14	Colorado St	44%	Colorado	Pac 12	-1	-3	10
-22	Boise St	30%	Mississippi	SEC	13	-11	-19
-7	New Mexico	69%	UTEP	CUSA	-24	10	-21
-45	UNLV	6%	Arizona	Pac 12	17	1	-27
-39	Fresno St	14%	USC	Pac 12	19	-8	-28
Sun	Utah St	44%	Tennessee	SEC	9	-12
		2.12	at least 2-5				-11
	PAC12
39	USC	86%	Fresno St	MWC	-1	-3	35
45	Arizona	94%	UNLV	MWC	-10	-1	34
7	California	23%	Northwestern	Big 10	7	19	33
8	UCLA	94%	Virginia	ACC	-4	-7	-3
-14	Colorado	56%	Colorado St	MWC	-3	14	-3
-3	Washington St	19%	Rutgers	Big 10	-6	5	-4
1	Washington	5%	Hawaii	MWC	-9	-4	-13
		3.77	almost 4-3				11
	SEC
24	Georgia	52%	Clemson	ACC	14	-2	36
22	Mississippi	70%	Boise St	MWC	5	0	27
49	Mississippi St	99%	Southern Miss	CUSA	-27	4	26
4	LSU	59%	Wisconsin	Big 10	16	-6	14
10	Alabama	93%	West Virginia	Big 12	1	-11	0
-30	Vanderbilt	91%	Temple	Amer	-12	3	-39
Susp	Florida	99%	Idaho	SB	-29	5
31	Tennessee	56%	Utah St	MWC	3	7	41
		6.19	at least 6-2				15
	SUN BELT
7	ULM	31%	Wake Forest	ACC	-4	-5	-2
-1	Ga Southern	24%	NC State	ACC	-4	0	-5
-38	Appalachian St	2%	Michigan	Big 10	11	6	-21
-38	Troy	66%	UAB	CUSA	-17	-6	-60
Susp	Idaho	1%	Florida	SEC	12	11
		1.24	at least 1-4				-22

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