Strongest Conference?

As is usual this time of year, the Excuse Machine has kicked into high gear and is barreling along at 100mph. And you had better get out of it's way, as it will run you over without a second thought. Confirmation bias run rampant, and people will say and do anything to justify an unjustifiable belief.

As we move along this trail, you will notice that I pick on the SEC. A lot. This is partly my own inherent bias (full disclosure: I am an alum of Ohio State), but the much larger influence is my contrarian nature. sEcSPN (thanks @joelklatt for that) is the TV partner for the CFP. It owns or co-owns the SEC and ACC networks. It's job is to make money, and it's chosen vehicle is sports "reporting." I put reporting in quotes because they really like to spin things:

So yeah, let's see if we can get THREE SEC teams in! Except...Bama would have to lose., Again. And Bama isn't a top 5 team. They're #17 Ray's Ranking (RR) or #25(!) RPI.

The current RR has Auburn at #15. RPI has them at #7 (RPI does not penalize for FCS games). CFP has them at #12. They've played a somewhat tougher schedule.

At this point only one of these teams have beaten a top 10 ranked team, and Oregon isn't the same team it was 9 weeks ago. Auburn should be ranked ahead of Bama even with 2 losses.


Twitter people are funny. Confirmation bias forces them to take positions that are logically indefensible. My favorite is the "but we play in the strongest conference, so we should be ranked higher than you!" This is the argument presented when OW% is brought up. Bama and Clemson are both being hammered on this right now, Bama deservedly ( 0.7778 1st level points, 1.5152 2nd level points), Clemson less so (0.8000 1st lvl, 2.3500 2nd lvl).

And there is certainly the perception that the SEC is the toughest conference. That perception is fully justified on the surface. How many BCS championships? Already 2 CFP championships. Is it really, though? Using totaled RR points, we get this so far in 2019:

Remember the penalties for playing FCS teams. My rankings suck the life out of you if you play those teams, or if the teams you play play those teams.

Do FCS teams make a big difference? Here's what the RPI conference ranks would look like (RPI considers OW% and OOW%, no modifiers):

I would say yes, failing to account for what amounts to scrimmages counting as wins has a pretty large effect.

We'll tackle this in more depth as we move along toward bowl season. In the mean time, stay objective!