The Pac 12 playing 9 conference games means they will play 4 of the 6 teams from the other division. The SEC plays 8 conf. games and 3 from the other division. An example of how this works is Florida and Alabama played each other only 4 times from 1992-2009, in regular season SEC games. Another example of the SEC way is the fact that Alabama and Georgia have only played 10 times since 1978. (10 times in 34 years -are they really in the same conference?)
Here's how the Pac 12 season's records would have looked scheduling the way the SEC does. Being the 1st year of 12 teams in the Pac, the new schedule would have been very easy to set up this way.
USC..............11-1
Oregon.........11-1
Stanford........11-1
Cal.................8-4
Utah...............8-4
Washington...7-5
Arizona St......7-5
Arizona..........6-6
UCLA.............6-6
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Wash St.........4-8
Colorado........4-9
Oregon St......3-9
Now you have 9 bowl eligible teams, Utah and Cal probably are ranked near the end of the top 25, and USC, Oregon, and Stanford are pulling a similar Top 1,2,3 ranking like the SEC did. You drop 1 conf game vs the other Divison, so now the Pac is playing 8 conference games like the SEC.
USC doesn't play Stanford
Utah doesn't play Washington
Arizona State doesn't play Oregon
Cal doesn't play UCLA
Arizona doesn't play Oregon St
Colorado doesn't play Washington St
The teams above listed first, all lost that game this past year.
Both Conferences had 6 teams over .500, but the Pac 12's
winning teams played each other 6 more times than the SEC's did.
PAC = 6 teams over .500 -Amount of games played between them
(Playing 5 means you played them all.)
USC............5
Wash..........5
Cal............ .5
Oregon.......4
Stanford......4
Utah......... ..3
total...........26
SEC = 6 teams over .500
Auburn.........5
Arkansas......4
LSU..............3
Alabama.......3
S.Carolina....3
Georgia........2
total.............20
Since 1998, not counting this year, the top 6 teams in the Pac
have played each other 50 more times than the top 6 teams in the SEC.
That's a huge difference! What an advantage since that game
is being replace by OOC games vs McNeese & McNephew State.
Now instead of going 6-6 in those games, you take those 12 games
and each school gets to play some ham n egger
from the Sun Belt Conf, the Mac, or from D1aa.
Out of 48 OOC games, the SEC played 16 teams that had
winning seasons, or 14 schools from the big BCS conferences.
The SEC played 34 vs the other games vs bad teams,
including 19 vs the Sun Belt and D1aa.
So, the SEC played 14-16 decent OOC games, and 32-34 games
against bad teams. The Pac 12 played 15 teams that had winning seasons,
or 17 school from the big BCS conf. They played 35 total OOC,
so that means they played about 18-20 bad teams.
Using the middle number, the SEC played 15 quality OOC teams
and 33 bad ones=48. The PAC 12 played 16 quality OOC teams and 19 bad ones=35.
When you change the 12 games that were conference games into
games vs D1aa, Sun Belt, etc. the Pac has now played 31 bad teams.
So take 2 more good teams off the schedule and replace them
with weak teams and you will now have an equal OOC schedule with the SEC.
Both now play 33 vs bad teams and 15 vs quality teams=48 OOC games.
Drop 2 OOC Pac 12 games
Drop Arizona @ Oklahoma St. This hard game is replaced the SEC way
with Clark Kent State and Arizona winds up being bowl eligible.
Drop Oregon @ LSU in Dallas because the SEC wouldn't have played that game on Pac 12 turf. Now, Oregon's only loss is to USC.
Hard to believe you could switch out 14 Pac games (12 conf & 2 OOC games for 14 guaranteed wins against the weakest schools out there and you would still have an equal strength of schedule to the SEC. Yet, the SEC is given credit for playing the strongest schedule year after year after year.
It's a crazy messed up corrupt BCS world. Again, I don't want the Pac12 to schedule like this, I just find it ridiculous that the SEC gets credit for actually scheduling this way.
Thanks Isaac,
USC Dave
