<p>Strength of schedule is one reason, as marge_sherwood just said. Pac10 teams schedule tough non-conference games–pretty much most, if not all, of the opponents are out of major or semi-decent mid-major conferences. As my previous post just pointed out, Pac10 teams play 9 conference games and a round-robin schedule. There’s just simply more beating each other and less chance for everyone to have a 0.500 record. Even I went to a Big 10 school, I have to say Big10 often has easy schedule and the fact that it doesn’t have a championship game AND a round-robin schedule can leave the top-2 or top-3 teams not meeting each other like last year (Wisconsin didn’t play OSU or Michigan last year and looked pretty with 1 loss going to post-season) and just kinda sneaking by with 1 instead of 2 losses.</p>
<p>On the other hand, you can’t deny the fact that the preseason poll is big reason why SEC got so many teams ranked now. They started out with 6 or 7 teams ranked before any game started. So when they beat each other, the winners gain a lot while losers drop little. It’s a richer getting richer thing! The only thing that can ruin this is if they lose to nonconference opponents many times but their weak nonconference schedule pretty much shields this from happening. k&s has a point: when they do play other teams from major conferences, they don’t appear to have any edge. But they don’t have many games like those anyway and people have short memory; so as long as they care of businesses by beating weak nonconference opponents, they just keep that image of being the toughest conference. They may be the toughest conference, but at this point, it’s more based on perception or assumption since the very beginning of the season.</p>
<p>marge – Are you talking about the same CFB “experts” who picked Notre Dame as national title contenders the past two seasons? (Btw, I knew ND was a fraud due to their mediocre D). </p>
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<p>SOS – you mean like how Bama has played Western Carolina, Houston and LOST to a middling FSU team (and this week faces the CFB powerhouse La.-Monroe)?</p>
<p>Or what about Auburn having a tough time w/ K-State and LOSING to USF? Not to mention playing New Mexico State and Tenn. Tech.</p>
<p>Or Arkansas playing Troy, North Texas, Chattanooga and Florida Int’l.? - Etc.</p>
<p>The SOS is all based on the inflated pre-season rankings of SEC teams and the continued inflated rankings (which totally overlooks all the bad losses some of them have had).</p>
<p>Going into this past weekend, the SEC had 7 teams ranked in the AP poll (5 of the ranked teams had 3 losses).</p>
<p>Otoh, of the B10 teams - two w/ 2 losses and 2 teams w/ 3 losses - none of them ranked in AP poll.</p>
<p>Btw, it’s funny how you base how good the SEC teams are - based on their SOS (which is based on their inflated poll rankings) – and yet, at the same time, totally dismiss the fact that the same polls rank dOSU no.1.</p>
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<p>^ This shows what you know about CFB. UF this year is NOT the same team as last year (having lost virtually its entire defense to graduation). </p>
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<p>And yet the “sucky” B10 managed to go 2-1 against mighty SEC last year in bowl games - including a 20-10 PSU victory over Tenn (the same Tenn, btw, which whooped Cal ealrier in the season) and a Wisconsin victory over Arkansas which played Florida in the SEC title game – not mention being 8-6 against the SEC in the past 5 years.</p>
<p>While some programs (ahem, Minny) only schedule patsies for non-conf. games – many of the B10 schools do schedule at least 1 major conf. team, if not a traditional power (btw, the SEC is even more notorious for easy OOC schedules).</p>
<p>4 B10 teams usually play ND (it’s not their fault that ND is pathetic this year).</p>
<p>dOSU played Texas the past 2 years (and has USC scheduled for next 2 years).</p>
<p>Wisconsin played Wash St. this year and Arizona and UNC in recent seasons.</p>
<p>Penn St. played BC and Neb. recently (and in the SAME year).</p>
<p>Iowa played ASU and Syracuse recently.</p>
<p>Illinois narrowly lost to Mizzou this season (and also played Syracuse) and recently has played Cal, UCLA and Rutgers (including Cal and Rutgers in the same season).</p>
<p>Even Northwestern has played ASU and Kansas recently.</p>
<p>k&s, why haven’t you been hired as a nationally published college football expert? You obviously know way more than all the current ones do.</p>
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<p>Most every team has its cupcake teams. What you’re over looking is what teams play cupcakes AND legitimately difficult teams. If you want to do lists, current #1 Ohio State has Akron, Youngstown and Kent State (so much tougher than Tenn. Tech, Troy and Western Carolina, right?). So who brings the “real” challenge to tOSU? </p>
<p>Michigan (who, oops, lost to Appalachian State and Oregon, both at the Big House)? Who else? Unranked Wisconsin? Penn State, who could barely hold on to a top 25 ranking for a week or two? Purdue, who even when it was unbeaten barely cracked the top 25? So Ohio State gets total cupcakes, plus middling teams that are, relative to the rest of the season, considered the “challengers.” Impressive.</p>
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<p>It’s hard to differentiate. tOSU is #1 because it’s remained 10 games undefeated at this point in the season, and has a lot of prestige and history backing their football program (as opposed to say, Kansas). But its remained undefeated against, as I said, relatively weak or even cupcake teams. </p>
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<p>Since I obviously don’t know much about college football, just how recently have Washington State, Arizona, UNC and Syracuse been considered “major conference teams”? From what I know, all are currently the punching bags of their respective conferences, but you know how much things change during the years. </p>
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<p>That’s right, my bad. Fuzzy memory. However, I don’t have a fuzzy memory when it comes to remembering the correct UF team steamroll "d"OSU in the title game. Fellow Buckeyes ruining Ted Ginn’s leg on the touchdown celebration? Very memorable. Seeing dOSU darling and Heisman winner Troy Smith repeatedly get sacked and afterwards getting picked in the FIFTH round of the NFL draft? Also highly memorable. Seeing Buckeyes, who enjoy talking smack toward other conferences because they’ve managed to consistently beat the likes of Bowling Green and Northern Illinois, cry? Extremely memorable. [YouTube</a> - OSU, Don’t Cry Out Loud - A Florida Gators BCS Tribute](<a href=“http://youtube.com/watch?v=prTdlH2TN0M]YouTube”>http://youtube.com/watch?v=prTdlH2TN0M)</p>
<p>Interesting that the BCS poll has Kansas at #3. If Kansas wins out it would be an interesting argument to have them in the national championship if they pull out a win against Mizzou.</p>
<p>Thats exactly my point. The SOS for most SEC teams is in playing other SEC teams some of which are overrated.</p>
<p>And its not like other top-ranked teams in other conferences didnt have similar type OOC schedules.</p>
<p>Arizona St. (currently ranked 7th) played San Jose St., San Diego St. and Colorado yeah, thats a real tough OOC schedule.</p>
<p>Kansas (currently ranked no. 2) played Central Mich., SE Louisiana, Toledo and FL Intl. Gee, thats really tough. Furthermore, Kansas has only played 2 teams w/in its conference w/ a winning record (Texas A&M and OK St.) and both only at 6-5.</p>
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<p>LOL! Youre basing your argument on rankings during the season?</p>
<p>A couple of weeks ago, why were Penn St., Wisconsin, Purdue and Illinois four 7-3 teams unranked, while ALL of the 6-3 SEC teams were ranked (including SCarolina, which was still ranked week prior to their 4th loss? How did SC manage to stay ranked after losing to Vandy and Tenn. In consecutive weeks?).</p>
<p>Could it be SEC hype?</p>
<p>Where is Kentucky ranked now? How about SCarolina (which, at one point was a top 6 team) currently sitting at 6-5?</p>
<p>Auburn, after consecutive losses to USF and Miss. St. was still ranked (a Miss. St. team, mind you, that got thrashed by WVU).</p>
<p>A couple of weeks ago Tenn and Bama both had bad losses to middling teams.</p>
<p>Otoh, PSU, Wisc. and Purdue at that time all didnt have any bad losses a couple of weeks ago (all the losses coming to teams w/ at least a 7-3 record).</p>
<p>The losses the SEC has suffered this season (to the likes of Cal, USF and Louisiana-Monroe) show that the AP writers totally overbought the SEC hype.</p>
<p>The current BCS rankings is much more reliable indicator of conference strength. The SEC currently has 7 teams in the BCS rankings, the SAME as the B10.</p>
<p>Yeah, it appears that the SEC is the strongest conference this year, but the difference isnt nearly as great as you seem to think it is.</p>
<p>Plus, the B10 is the only conference (aside from the SEC) which has TEN teams bowl eligible.</p>
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<p>dOSU has handily beaten 3 B10 teams w/ records of 9-3, 8-4 and 8-4.</p>
<p>And who exactly has Kansas beaten? Central Michigan, SE Louisiana, FL Intl, Toledo, K-State, Baylor, Colorado, Texas A&M, Neb., OK St. and Iowa St.</p>
<p>Only 2 of the B12 teams Kansas has beaten have a winning record (and only 6-5 at that).</p>
<p>Plus, at least dOSUs sole loss was to a very good UI team (one that almost beat Mizzou - if it hadnt been for 5 TOs, including a fumble returned 100 yds for a TD).</p>
<p>Otoh, LSU lost to a middling Kentucky team, USC lost to Stanford (with Stanfords back-up QB in his 1st start), Oklahoma lost to a mediocre Colorado team, etc.</p>
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<p>Uhh, these games are scheduled 4-8 yrs in advance (where teams can go from good to bad or vice versa) and all of them belong to major conferences.</p>
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<p>LOL! Nice try at trying to wiggle out of your previous statement about this years UF team.</p>
<p>And yeah, dOSU played a horrible game (esp. after Ginn went down). But its ONE game where anything can happen.</p>
<p>Kind of like how LSU was severely tested by Bama a team that lost to Louisiana-Monroe!</p>
<p>And yeah, dOSU must suck so much for playing in the B10 nevermind that it had won its previous 4 bowl games.</p>
<p>I like how you totally overlook how PSU beat Tenn (which, btw, thrashed Cal earlier that year) and Wisc. beat Ark. which played in the SEC championship game.</p>
<p>And for a more reliable measure looking at head-to-head matches over FIVE years the B10 is 8-6 against the SEC.</p>