Ariz State 4-7 .. lost to Georgia

Washing 3-7.. lost to LSU and Notre Dame

Your top Team (Oregon) lost to Boise State.. maybe WAC is better

OSU lost to Cincy

Stanford lost to Wake Forest

Arizona lost to Iowa
I’ve posted this for the third time now. Respond HP. I’m a big 10 homer. I can admit my conference is down. Do us all a favor. Report on the facts and stay unbiased. I’ve respected your posts since 05, but come on. Why don’t you just admit this is a down year for every conference, yes even the sec. I really don’t see a standout team, or player, let alone conference.

Because as more games have been played the Pac 10′s position has dropped.
Billingsley: 1) SEC, 2) Big East, 3) Pac10
Colley: 1) SEC, 2) Big East, 3) Pac10
Wolfe: 1) Big East, 2) SEC, 3) Pac10
Massey: 1) SEC. 2) Pac10, 3) Big East
Anderson & Hester: 1) Pac10, 2) SEC, 3) Big East
Sagarin: 1) Pac10, 2) SEC, 3) ACC

Even Sagarin and Anderson & Hester recognize that the SEC is considerably stronger based on simple averages. It’s only when you use a method that penalizes conferences for having undefeated teams that the Pac 10 barely edges out the SEC in 2 of the 6 systems.

The Pac 10 is a good conference, but it’s difficult to respect them when they adamantly oppose any type of playoff, oppose expansion, and don’t play a conference championship game. My guess is that HP won’t give the SEC it’s due for staging a conference championship game, even though the national championship game might otherwise be between two SEC teams.

And, yeah, HP, I missed the point of the post if you ignore what I said–which is that SEC games have been closer this season than Pac 10 games, and roughly the same number of conference games have been competitive (and, truth be told, one of the other conferences may even score better on both counts).

So, given that, why is the Pac 10 more watchable and entertaining this season? Is it because they finally had a high-profile game that was entertaining? Good for them. Too bad the game was, in terms of the national champion, meaningless.

And before you get a little too excited about your great, groundbreaking find (“Bogus Bowl Teams!”), each of those SEC teams still has another game to go on its schedule. (And, at least in the case of Georgia, if only we’d have just scheduled another Pac 10 team in lieu of a 1-AA opponent we’d easily be bowl eligible regardless.)

And need I point out that none of those teams are contending for the conference title? Too bad you can’t say that about 5-wins-against-BCS-teams Arizona.

Hey, if you want to get excited about a conference that has gone 7-7 against BCS opponents and unhesitatingly proclaim it the best in the land, that’s your right. But your claiming the Pac 10 is the best conference every time it cobbles together a halfway decent season isn’t exactly hard-hitting–it’s sadly all too predictable.

Also, if you want to talk about margins of victory, talk about Bama vs Tennessee or Florida vs Arkansas (game handed to them) or Mississippi State (game also handed to them).

The following SEC teams would not be bowl eligible if not for wins over FCS teams (key win in parantheses):

Georgia (Tennessee Tech)
South Carolina (South Carolina State)
Tennessee (Western Kentucky)

Not to mention, if he had been reading me the last two years, he would see that I had the SEC as the best conference up until this particular season.

As for Sagarin, once again the Pac-10 leads this week (as it has most of the year) despite playing tougher schedules. And never mind that six of the top 22 in the Sagarin rankings are from the Pac-10 (the SEC has 4). You see, we can choose whatever cutoff point we like (Solon prefers 51).

This doesn’t even cover the other point of the post, which is that the Pac-10 has been more entertaining and watchable than any other conference.

Whatever the Pac 10 does, it is best.

If Pac 10 teams are scoring a lot of points, that is good football–and those defenses are good, they’re just overwhelmed by those amazing offenses. Also, teams not scoring points are boring, and they’re not playing good defense, the offenses they are up against are just bad.

If USC wins the league 7 years running, it is still nonetheless competitive because the shit teams at the bottom rotate going 6-3 for second place in the conference.

Bowl performance is irrelevant…until the Pac 10 goes 5-0 one year, in which case it is all-important.

And now that the Pac-10 is pretty mediocre at the top, what truly matters is a conference’s ‘depth’–nevermind the fact that the ACC wasn’t praised on here for having 10 bowl teams last year, and the SEC for whatever reason somehow isn’t as deep as the Pac 10 despite having 10 bowl-eligible teams this year, and 11 of the Top 51 teams in the Sagarin ratings (to the Pac 10′s 7).

The Sagarin Ratings, for the record, also don’t matter unless the Pac 10 ranks well in a particular week.