Sizing up the other 5 conferences

There's no secret that I know the Big Ten better than every other conference, so I won't be able to go into detail as much with these other conference. I did follow the same format as before, coming up with a rubric and assigning win probabilities for each game. With regards to the probabilities, I believe that I put more of an emphasis on where I believe these teams will finish in their conference rather than looking more closely at the match ups. This has mostly to do with a lack of familiarity with some of these teams. In the Pac-12 in particular, there is a lot of uncertainty with new coaches at Arizona State, Arizona, UCLA, and Washington State, and the departures of key players like Andrew Luck, LaMichael James, and Darron Thomas. Every conference has some issues. These are just instate expected wins by the way.

Atlantic Division:
Clemson - 5.55
Florida State - 5.2
Wake Forest - 4.4
NC State - 4
Maryland - 2.8
BC - 2.05

As EDSBS would explain, picking Clemson to do anything good is just about the worst thing you can do in college football. Clemson failing is the most Clemson thing ever. However, Florida State is also a perennial disappointment. Every year, people praise their incredible talent and have them as preseason national champions, but they always flounder their way into a Russell Athletic Bowl. This is another year where Florida State is a preseason pick for national champion, but I have Clemson edging them for the title, despite having Florida State as a slight favorite in their head to head clash. The rest of the division isn't really a factor, but I have Maryland finishing above BC because the Eagles are terrible and Maryland has some top freshmen talent coming in.

Coastal Division:
Virginia Tech - 5.75
Georgia Tech - 5.2
Virginia - 4.4
Miami - 4.2
UNC - 2.65
Duke - 1.8

Virginia Tech loses David Wilson, but have Logan Thomas for another season. Besides Denard Robinson and Matt Barkley, Logan Thomas is the quarterback that I am most interested in seeing this year. Everyone knows that Virginia Tech will have a great defense, and that is what will carry them to winning that division. The big question is whether they can win the conference and whether they can defeat Clemson, who beat them twice last season. Beyond that, Georgia Tech is due for another solid season, and Miami will continue to spiral a bit amidst their booster scandal. UNC and Duke will be UNC and Duke.

SEC East:
Georgia - 5.8
South Carolina - 4.85
Florida - 4.3
Missouri - 3.95
Vanderbilt - 3.6
Tennessee - 2.85
Kentucky - 2

Georgia is once against the cream of the SEC East and the only team with a real quarterback in this division. It should be another season of beating a relatively easy schedule before getting stomped in the SEC title game. South Carolina should be better now that they have escaped Stephen Garcia's reign of terror, and they have one of the best defensive linemen in the country in Jadeveon Clowney. Florida will still struggle without having a definitive answer at quarterback. Missouri will surprise this season, propelled by true freshman, Dorial Green-Beckham. I believe that DGB will have a Sammy Watkins type effect on Mizzou. Tennessee and Kentucky will continue to be Tennessee and Kentucky.

SEC West:
Alabama - 6.55
Arkansas - 5.65
LSU - 5.5
Auburn - 3.7
Texas A&M - 3.1
Mississippi State - 3.1
Mississippi - 1.45

This is the toughest division in all of college football and is loaded at the top. With the Honey Badger no longer at LSU, the Crimson Tide get a firm grasp on the top spot, and Arkansas edges LSU. That will be a very close match up and whoever comes in second could very well be determined by that Thanksgiving Friday game. I have Arkansas edging LSU because of quarterback play, as I have Tyler Wilson as the top rated quarterback in the SEC. I don't think that the Razorbacks can compete with Alabama on the defensive and offensive fronts though. A&M will do okay against a tough schedule, but it will take them a while to adjust to the SEC. Ole Miss is still terrible.

Pac-12 North:
Oregon - 7.2
Stanford - 6.35
Washington - 4.9
California - 3.95
Washington State - 3.4
Oregon State - 2.8

Oregon will once again be the cream of the crop in the Pac-12 North. They return one of the most exciting players in the game with D'Anthony Thomas. While they lose a couple of key players in Darron Thomas and LaMichael James, Chip Kelly will have his boys at the top. Stanford loses Andrew Luck among a few other key players, but they return strong in the trenches. Stanford might be the best coached team in the conference, and they will continue to be a strong team. Washington's recruiting has taken a turn for the best under Tosh Lupoi, and I expect the Huskies to benefit. The big question for the North is how Washington State is going to do under Mike Leach. I'm not sure how much progress he is going to make in his first season.

Pac-12 South:
USC - 7.25
Arizona State - 4.6
Utah - 4.4
UCLA - 4
Arizona - 3.05
Colorado - 2.1

USC is a popular choice for the national championship and for good reason. They have loads of talent on the offensive side of the ball. It isn't even a question of whether they will win the Pac-12 South, but more if they will win the Pac-12 South with a chance at getting into the National Championship. Matt Barkley and Robert Woods will have to do work for that to happen. The rest of the conference has a lot of question marks. Arizona State, UCLA, and Arizona all have new coaches. It will be interesting to see which of those coaches will get their team to second in the division.

Big XII:
Oklahoma - 6.45
West Virginia - 5.85
Oklahoma State - 5.7
Kansas State - 5.15
Texas - 4.75
TCU - 4.45
Baylor - 4.2
Iowa State - 3.7
Texas Tech - 3.1
Kansas - 1.65

Oklahoma is the favorite to win this and they have something to prove. With Mike Stoops back in the coaching staff, they should have a better defense. Landry Jones returns for his senior year and has to prove himself if he wants to be one of the top draft picks in the 2013 NFL Draft. West Virginia really is a wild card in their first season. They lost defensive coordinator, Jeff Casteel, but they return an offense that dropped 70 on Clemson in the Orange Bowl. The Big XII isn't exactly known for their defense and the Mountaineers should be able to exploit that. Oklahoma State loses some key players, so I have them falling to third, but just barely. Kansas State has a great quarterback in Colin Klein, but they're still Kansas State. They are a dark horse to win the conference, but that's because they're Kansas State. Texas will continue to struggle as long as they struggle to fill the quarterback spot. David Ash? Case McCoy? Get it done. I think that TCU will do better than expected because they do put an emphasis on defense. They'll struggle because of youth. Baylor lost RG3, Terrance Ganaway, and Kendall Wright. They'll be decent, but they won't be as good as last year. Kansas hired Charlie Weis. That's all that needs to be said.

Do we have to?

Big East:
Louisville - 4.7
Temple - 4.45
Cincinnati - 4.3
Pittsburgh - 4.25
Connecticut - 4.05
Rutgers - 2.95
Syracuse - 2.45
South Florida - 1.85

The Big East will be tight again, but in a bad way. No one will stand out, leading us to question once against WHY DOES THE BIG EAST HAVE AN AUTOMATIC BCS BERTH? I have Louisville because of Charlie Strong. It'll be interesting to see how Temple does in their first season in the Big East. They lost their offensive coordinator, Scot Loeffler, to Auburn. Can they sustain their momentum?

A Fulmer Cup Follow Up

I wanted to write a follow up to my Fulmer Cup post. The all time standings for the Fulmer Cup can be found here. Last time, I looked at how the conferences broke down. We found that the SEC isn't any worse than the Big XII and the Big Ten, while the ACC, Pac-12, and Big East were better at limiting their crimes rates.

Looking at the schools individually, we see that SEC has 7 of the top 20 schools. That's not even including Missouri who enters the conference this Fall. The Big Ten has 4 schools in the Top 20 while the ACC and Pac 12 each had 2 schools. For all of the problems that the Big XII has, they're losing their only Top 20 school in Missouri. However, they're inheriting West Virginia and TCU who are in the top 20.

I think another sign of problems is if a school is on the Fulmer Cup board every single year. The four schools to score every single year were Florida, South Carolina, Iowa State, and Kansas State. That's including 2012, so a school like Nebraska can appear on this list later. The habitual aspect of this suggests that Florida and South Carolina, in particular, have some major issues. Iowa State has had one bad year, but hasn't scored very high for the most part. Kansas State is the same way.

Also, if you add up the totals, the SEC is far in away the worst conference for crime. They have a 210 point advantage over the Big Ten and Big XII. While the gap between the Big Ten/Big XII and the other three major conferences is large, it is not nearly as large as that. What this tells me is that the SEC have had some years that have been very bad for crime, which we can see from the conference's 3 Fulmer Cups.

Clearly though, it's worrying that there might be a connection between big football and crime. For me, crime is unacceptable behavior no matter who the player(s) are and you've got to wonder whether a lax culture is the cause of this. It will be interesting to see how/if things change in the future.

Let's Make a Deal

So today the Big Ten and Pac-12 came to an agreement to schedule each other in inter-conference play in an effort to raise the profiles of their television networks. The deal is very intriguing and unique as it marks the first major effort from the big conferences to ramp up their schedules through bi-lateral conference agreements. The Big Ten-Pac-12 agreement makes sense beyond the Rose Bowl because both conferences have created their own networks in partnership with Fox. USA Today has the necessary quotes from the Conference Commissioners:

"It's sort of in lieu of what some other people are doing (with expansion)," Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said. 

"Our idea is you can't stand still. You have to build in an environment where people are competing for attention, where they're competing to have the best competitive assets and to present themselves in the best way. I think both of us believe … this is the most constructive way for us to do that."

These is clearly in response to the SEC adding A&M and Missouri and Big XII, ACC, and Big East all making efforts to maintain their automatic qualification in the BCS. The Pac-12 and Big Ten started early, expanding their conferences last year and creating conference championship games. Pac-12 Commissioner, Larry Scott, added:

"This will add a tough, high-quality opponent," Scott said. "Certainly, it creates a tougher path (to the national championship game). But the benefits, we think, outweigh the fact it's far more challenging."

Now the big question from all of this is what will those match ups be? What match ups make sense? I went through the teams in both conferences and tried to find a natural fit. I'll go through the match ups I came up with (listed by profile).

Michigan-USC:
This feels like an easy choice. Michigan and USC have faced off 8 times in bowl games and are also the most successful football programs in the country, let alone these conferences. This agreement is going to be about creating a marquee match up and I believe as a result, you need Michigan playing USC or Oregon and USC playing Michigan or Ohio State. I believe, culturally, this might be the best match up for the two schools.

Ohio State-Oregon:
If you have Michigan-USC, you have to have Ohio State-Oregon. This will be a good match up because both schools have strong programs, you will have the spread versus the spread, and you'll also have the Nike versus Nike contests. It was tough to choose between this and Ohio State-USC. I just thought, culturally, Michigan-USC is the best match up you can have. The case could be made for Ohio State-USC and Michigan-Oregon since those two games have happened in recent memory.

Wisconsin-California:
It might seem weird to put Cal up here, but I'm anticipating a drop in Stanford's program once Andrew Luck is gone. Cal gets a lot of the top recruits in California and once they get their renovations and new Student-Athlete High Performance Center done, they should be one of the better programs in the Pac-12. Meanwhile, Wisconsin seems like they'll be one of the better programs in the Big Ten, but they don't have the tradition of winning that Michigan and Ohio State do. It seems like a potential good match up.

Nebraska-Washington:
A lot of people probably leapt to a Nebraska-Colorado match up considering both schools were rivals in the Big XII North. However, Colorado's program is a mess and I think the Big Ten will realize that Nebraska can be better used playing someone else. Washington seems to be an emerging program under Steve Sarkisian, so this seems like a better line up competitively.

Michigan State-Arizona State:
Due to the bro-y nature of both schools, I believe that this is a natural match up culturally. Michigan State tends to be the stray dog of the Big Ten in that they don't have a rival that considers them a top rival in conference. Competitively, they can challenge for the Big Ten title or be a middling team. We don't know what ASU will be under Todd Graham, but it should be something similar.

Penn State-UCLA:
It hard to gauge where Penn State will be after these Sandusky charges came out. They're sort of the untouchables right now. I could see them as high as playing Cal or Washington, but I think it's difficult. Their recruitment class is shedding players one by one, so it's not clear where their program will be in 2017. UCLA has had similar struggles and have had trouble finding a coach that will lead them to a Pac-12 title. We'll see if Jim Mora can do the job.

Northwestern-Stanford:
As I said before, I don't think Stanford will remain an elite program in the post-Andrew Luck era. They don't have a great QB coach like Harbaugh anymore, so it will be difficult to develop another great quarterback that can transform the team. I think these two schools work because they're both small private schools in major football conferences. They're going to go after the same players. They're probably attracting similar, high-caliber students. Northwestern has a solid program, though it might not be elite. This match up just works.

The Rest of the match ups:
Iowa-Utah
Illinois-Arizona
Purdue-Colorado
Indiana-Oregon State
Minnesota-Washington State