NCAA 2009

[stjaba]

And the data says you are wrong - you said USC is the 'team of the decade", yet they cannot get throught hte Pac-10 undefeated - why do you think Florida could? Just because they are Florida - right?

The reason why USC can't make it through undefeated is that they blow a winnable game almost every year. You don't see that happening as often to the SEC champions. Even last year, when Florida lost to unranked Ole Miss, Ole Miss ended up ranking in the top 10 at the end of the season.

[stjaba]

Your article proves nothing - in fact, if my claim is true, that the Pac-10 is consistently tough top to bottom, that is exactly the result that you would expect to get. A lot of teams with good, but not great records. That is called parity. mediocrity

Fixed your post. Will address the rest later, have to go to class.

[Neil]

Florida plays USCs schedule and they drop at least 1 game, and maybe more. They haven't proven they can win against quality opponents weak in and week out, and quite frankly, nobody can, for the most part.

What if you age Florida?

[Eddie Teach]

You can't go undefeated in a major conference without a few lucky breaks going your way. Florida & Alabama have both had them this year and there's no reason to assume they wouldn't have had them playing in the Pac-10.

[Berkut]

Your article proves nothing - in fact, if my claim is true, that the Pac-10 is consistently tough top to bottom, that is exactly the result that you would expect to get. A lot of teams with good, but not great records. That is called parity. mediocrity

Fixed your post. Will address the rest later, have to go to class.

No, mediocrity would show a lot of teams with crappy records who don't beat anyone outside their conference, even when they play mediocre OOC schedules. The Pac-10 consistently has the best OOC schedules in the country, and certainly the toughest if you throw in another Pac-10 game into that OOC schedule to compare to the SECs and others conference schedule.

So no, that isn't what you would expect at all.

So tell me then- if you had a conference that was in fact very good from top to bottom, are you seriously arguing that the outcomes should be a couple teams with great records, and a bunch of teams with much worse records? That doesn't make any sense at all.

[Valmy]

No, mediocrity would show a lot of teams with crappy records who don't beat anyone outside their conference, even when they play mediocre OOC schedules.

Hey I think I know that conference!

[Berkut]

And the data says you are wrong - you said USC is the 'team of the decade", yet they cannot get throught hte Pac-10 undefeated - why do you think Florida could? Just because they are Florida - right?

The reason why USC can't make it through undefeated is that they blow a winnable game almost every year. You don't see that happening as often to the SEC champions. Even last year, when Florida lost to unranked Ole Miss, Ole Miss ended up ranking in the top 10 at the end of the season.

So what is so special about Florida then, why are they impervious to this, while USC is not, when in fact you just said that USC was the "team of the decade"?

The insistence that this cannot possibly have anything to do with the conference and the teams they are playing is simply obtuse. Of course it does.

What objective evidence do you have that Florida is somehow innately superior in some manner to USC and could win games that USC cannot, year in and year out?

[Berkut]

Florida plays USCs schedule and they drop at least 1 game, and maybe more. They haven't proven they can win against quality opponents weak in and week out, and quite frankly, nobody can, for the most part.

What if you age Florida?

Then clearly they could beat the Ravens.

[Berkut]

You can't go undefeated in a major conference without a few lucky breaks going your way. Florida & Alabama have both had them this year and there's no reason to assume they wouldn't have had them playing in the Pac-10.

So your contention about the SEC being superior to the Pac-10 is based on Florida getting some lucky breaks?

Gotcha.

[Eddie Teach]

So your contention about the SEC being superior to the Pac-10 is based on Florida getting some lucky breaks?

Gotcha.

[Valmy]

Would PAC-10 refs have given LSU that interception?  I think that alone should determine whose conference is better.

[Berkut]

Would PAC-10 refs have given LSU that interception?  I think that alone should determine whose conference is better.

Don't get me started.

The last thing we need is an argument hanging our hats on teh quality of Pac-10 officiating.

Fucking Washington.

[MadImmortalMan]

The reason why USC can't make it through undefeated is that they blow a winnable game almost every year. You don't see that happening as often to the SEC champions. Even last year, when Florida lost to unranked Ole Miss, Ole Miss ended up ranking in the top 10 at the end of the season.

Of course they did. They beat the media's golden boy. They had to rank them after that. 

[stjaba]

So tell me then- if you had a conference that was in fact very good from top to bottom, are you seriously arguing that the outcomes should be a couple teams with great records, and a bunch of teams with much worse records? That doesn't make any sense at all.

I never claimed that. I don't think you can make many valid inferences from looking from a pure win-loss distribution standpoint. You can have a bunch of mediocre teams beating up on each other, or you can have a bunch of amazing teams beating up on each other. Looking at the numbers won't distinguish this. There are other factors you have to evaluate.

I agree that the Pac-10 has a lot of parity. That doesn't make it a "harder" or easier league to win. For instance, in the English Premier League, there are 4 or 5 teams that are consistently good, and they beat up the remaining 15 teams. In the MLS, the teams that win change every year, and there is significant parity. Would you argue that winning the MLS is stronger than the EPL? Hell, no. The crappiest EPL team would challenge for the MLS championship every year. Parity does not prove strength. Theres tons of other examples out there.

Just to restate my arguments, so it's clear

1- Over the years, the SEC is a better on average top to bottom league than the Pac-10. You can prove this by bowl appearances, team by team comparisons, national championships, etc.

2- Just because USC loses every year to a Pac-10 team doesn't prove that the Pac-10 is somehow extra strong. These games are usually fluke teams in the bottom half of the leagues. I think that says more about USC's preperations for mediocre opponents than anything else. Also, upseats happen in every year in every league. Just because USC has been extra unlucky recently doesn't make it extra special.

3- The SEC is harder to win than the Pac-10. The SEC has 3+ elite teams every year, plus a championship game. That means winning the SEC is going to be hard every year no matter what. The Pac-10 champion will face, at best 1-2 in-conference elite opponents. Obviously, both the Pac-10 champ and the SEC champ will have to avoid upsets to mediocre teams every year.

[Berkut]

I never claimed that the Pac-10 was strong because they are all ranked close together - youa re turning my argument around.

That was in response to the claim that the Pac-10 was NOT strong because they don't have as many 'ranked" teams. Team rankings are based on W-L records, and the Pac-10 being a strong conference with good parity means that there are not going to be a lot of teams with "elite" win/loss records (which basically means you only lost 3 games at most that year).

Not all conferences with a bunch of teams that beat each other up have great parity - but all conferences with great parity will have teams that beat each other up, and in fact one should expect that if a conference is strong top to bottom, it should be hard for any team to go undefeated in that conference. And that is exactly what we see in the Pac-10, so YOUR claim that the Pac-10 cannot be that good because they don't have enough teams that get into the top-10 (yor definition of "elite") is bogus, since getting into the top-10 requires that you do not drop games, which won't happen in a conference with good parity.

The SEC has a few good teams, and a bunch that are lower-mid level. pretty much exactly what the Sagarin ratings show right now - two elite teams, 1 terrible team, and a bunch that are n the 40-60 range.

The Pac-10 has two elite teams, one that may very well break into the top ten if they manage to knock those two elites off, then a bunch of teams that are in the teens to the 40s. Simply superior to the SEC, at least right now.

My entire point through all of this is that the Pac-10 does not get the credit it deserves, because the entire college football "ranking" system is primarily concerned with losses. You are ranked based on how many games you lose, no matter who you lose them to, and that distorts the true quality of the teams and conferences.

The SEC (and every other BCS conference) has a systemic advantage over the Pac-10, because

1. They play relatively weak OOC schedules, and
2. They play more OOC games (which tend to be weak compared to in conference games) than the Pac-10.

lastly, I am not arguing that USC is extra special - actually, YOU are making that argument by arguing that while they are the "team of the decade", they ahve some kind of special flaw that means they cannot perform as well as the vaunted Florida Gators, and that even though USC is the "team of the decade" and Florida is not, Florida would still do better than USC. That doesn't even pass the most basic of ratioanal thinking tests.

If my contention is true, that the Pac-10 is one of the toughest top to bottom conferences with 1 team that is exceptionally good, then what should happen? Shouldn't a tough conference make it very unlikely that a good team, even an exceptional team, can sweep it every year? I think the fact that USC has so much trouble running the table is most certainly evidence that the table is pretty damn hard to run, and it is perfectly reasonable to think that other teams in weaker top to bottom conferences may not ahve the success they have if they played in the Pac-10.