Well the Results are in as to Which Football Conference Ruled the NCAA in 2011?
By Editorial Staff
I promised to list the final numbers in my August 2011 post, so read on and you’ll see how accurate or inaccurate I was.
Between the eleven conferences there were 482 non-conference games and when all was said and done the mighty SEC fell short of the number one spot (not having the best won/loss percentage) because it only played 12 non-FBS schools, while the Big 12, which beat out all other conferences for the best non-conference record played only 5 non-FBS schools. Which makes the Big-12’s non-conference record that much more impressive than any other conferences non-conference record.
The Big Ten and Big East came in at numbers 3 and 4 and played 10 and 8 non-FBS schools, respectively.
Neck and neck at numbers 5 and 6 were the PAC-12 followed by the ACC. The PAC-12 played 8 non-FBS schools and the ACC played 13 non-FBS schools.
Rounding out the conferences that finished with a won/loss percentage above 50% we have the Mountain West at number 7. They played 8 non-FBS schools.
The last four conferences, numbers 8, 9, 10 and 11, are Conference USA (played 7 non-FBS schools), Mid Atlantic (played 12 non-FBS schools, Sun Belt (played 4 non-FBS schools) and Western Athletic (played 5 non-FBS schools).
In the table below in the first column is the order in which the conferences finished the season (bowl games included) in non-conference play and in the second column is the conference ranking based on my predictions back on August 7, 2011. Also, following the first table is a second table containing the actual won/loss record of each of the eleven (11) conferences and a third table containing the won/loss records of each conference in this season’s bowl games.
Bottom line is that the Big 12 finished #1 in overall non-conference record and #1 in overall bowl game record. Way to go Big 12! The SEC finished tied for 3rd in bowl games won/loss percentage.
Conference |
Final Conference
Standing
Predicted Conference
Standing
Big 12
1
3
SEC
2
1
Big 10
3
2
Big East
4
7
PAC-12
5
6
ACC
6
8
Mountain West
7
4
C-USA
8
5
MAC
9
10
Sun Belt
10
11
WAC
11
9
The final non-conference won / loss numbers for the eleven (11) conferences are listed below in order of winning percentage (Bowl games are included.).
| Conference | Wins | Losses | Win % |
| Big 12 | 33 |
5
86.8
SEC
49
10
83.1
Big 10
40
20
66.7
Big East
29
16
64.4
PAC-12
27
19
58.7
ACC
34
24
58.6
Mountain West
24
21
53.3
C-USA
26
30
46.4
MAC
27
32
45.8
Sun Belt
13
26
33.3
WAC
15
31
32.6
And the 2011/2012 Bowl Game Results are:
| Rank | Conference | Wins | Losses | Percentage |
| 1. | Conference USA | 4 | 1 | 0.800% |
| 2. | Big-12 | 6 | 2 | 0.750% |
| 3. | Mountain West | 2 | 1 | 0.667% |
| 3. | SEC | 6 | 3 | 0.667% |
| 3. | Mid American | 2 | 1 | 0.667% |
| 6. | Big East | 3 | 2 | 0.600% |
| 7. | Independents | 1 | 1 | 0.500% |
| 8. | Big Ten | 4 | 6 | 0.400% |
| 9. | PAC-12 | 2 | 5 | 0.286% |
| 10. | ACC | 2 | 6 | 0.250% |
| 11. | Sun Belt | 0 | 2 | 0.000% |
| 11. | Western Athletic | 0 | 2 | 0.000% |
We can do a lot more analysis of the numbers but let’s leave that for a rebuttal if anyone wants to leave me a comment that differs with any of my opinions. Because, you know I am full of it, I mean full of opinions!