Monday, June 14, 2010

Bowl Season Wrap-up - Slightly Delayed - Again

With the Big12 barely clinging two life, I thought it might be a good idea to finally finish this post that I started back in January. Two years back, I did a round up of the BCS bowl games by compiling the records of the different conferences. I repeated this little exercise with the results from the 2009-2010 bowl season but to make up for the missing year I also did a cumulative record from the past 3 years. So, is there anything here of interest? Well, the not quite departed but surely to be renamed Big 12 has enjoyed both more recent and long term success than the two conferences that stole their teams. But then again, the moves of those teams weren't driven by seeking a more winning tradition. A bigger TV paycheck was the draw. Oh yeah, and academic alliances - and if you believe that I have some picturesque Louisiana beach front property to sell you. In fact, the two teams that bolted weren't the ones really driving that success of the conference so if anything, they left for a conference that gives them a better chance at winning.

But what I think is the most striking thing about the below results and the recent realignment announcements is what is happening with the Mountain West Conference. The success of the MWC puts the Big East and ACC to shame. They should not be begging to be included in the BCS. The Big East and ACC should be begging to remain a BCS conference. And now the MWC has added Boise State, the most successful non-BCS school outside of the MWC. Yet the MWC is still a second class conference. Ahhh, yet another reason to pay very little attention to college sports. They make money like professionals. They chase money like professionals. They give lip service to the student athlete but care for their education as much semi-intelligent individuals cared for the Lost finale. And they treat the everyone like a typical Glen Beck fan by thinking we will fall for the line that they actually care about crowning the best team as champion. As I have said before, I have no problem with the old bowl system. It never gave us a definitive champion but then it never pretended to. The current system that relegates the MWC to the ghettos of college football with the likes of Northern Illinois and Toledo insults everyone's intelligence.

Final College Football Bowl Standings

Conference W L GB
MWC 5 1
-
SEC 6 4 1
Big East 4 2 1
Big Ten 4 3 1.5
Ind 1 0 1.5
Big12 4 4 2
Sun Belt 1 1 2
ACC 3 4 2.5
WAC 1 2 2.5
C-USA 2 4 3
Pac10 2 5 3.5
MAC 1 4 3.5

Bowl Season Performance - 2007-2009

Conference W L GB
SEC 19 8 -
MWC 12 4 1.5
Big 12 13 7 2.5
Pac-10 11 7 3.5
Sun Belt 3 2 5
Ind. 2 2 5.5
Big Ten 11 12 6
C-USA 8 10 6.5
Big East 8 11 7
WAC 3 9 8.5
ACC 9 16 9
MAC 1 12 11



This blog post is sponsored by International Genetic Technologies, Incorporated.

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