Perfect days for the Pac-12 and Big 12 hinged on the game between the flagship universities of the two biggest states in the nation, and Cal’s Darius White deflected a Texas extra point for a 45-44 win.
Skai Moore’s late interceptions saved the SEC from a second upset on the opening day of the football season, but the conference still joined the American and Sun Belt as Thursday’s disappointments.
The Pac-12 ended the SEC’s six-year run as the top conference in the NFL Draft by a 1247-1216 score just months after also ending the SEC’s streak of the best seasons by a college conference (see Breitbart Sports story here). It was the first time the Pac-12 topped the draft this century.
When Breitbart Sports calculated that the Pac-12 ranked as the top conference due to being +12 points better than the average team, SEC partisans vehemently disagreed. Few dispute that the Pac-12 stands as No. 1 again in the bowl season with an even more impressive +15.2 point rating.
SEC teams averaged less than 20 points a game against the two Mississippi schools this season. Those two schools played their first games all season against other Power 5 teams New Year’s Eve, and both gave up 42 points by the end of the third quarter.
Big 12 advocates grumbled when Breitbart Sports rated the Big 12 as the fourth best conference for the regular season, and then the committee did not choose a Big 12 team for the first playoffs. Both were vindicated Monday as the Big 12 was beaten up in their first three games to fall to 5th in the Conference Ratings.
The SEC needed USC (that is South Carolina) to pull out a win to stay one point ahead of the Pac-12, +17 to +16, as the top conference. In the system explained here, both USC (that is Southern Cal) and Arizona State won to improve the Pac-12 to 3-0 but gained less than a point each for the conference by winning by less than the spread.
The Pac-12 had the best regular season of any conference, and their quest to also top the SEC in the Bowl season started well with a blowout win by Utah, which has now won 11 of their last 12 holiday season games, including a blowout of Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl.
