With the bowls nearly completed (only the Blue Box Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl and BCS Championship game remain) we are now at a point where we can look holistically at what transpired this bowl season and use it to extrapolate something about the conferences. Yes, I know that bowl records don't tell the true conference vs. conference story, but much as in-season out-of-conference games, they are a basis for comparison.
I figured in doing the tallies, I'd focus on BCS auto-qualifying conferences playing one another. Surely playing non-AQs is just a resume padder, right? Actually, non-AQs are currently 3-2 against AQ competitors, and the best the AQs can do is pull even as Boston College plays Nevada in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl tonight. Both the SEC and the Big Ten have losing records vs. non-AQs; UCF over UGA and TCU over Wisconsin, respectively, though the latter, played in the Rose Bowl, really shouldn't count. And my internalized Big East oppression was telling me that surely our conference had the most games against non AQs; actually, the Big East only had one (Louisville over Southern Miss in St. Pete) where the ACC is already 1-1 (College Park over ECU; Air Force over Georgia Tech) with one (Fight Hunger) yet to be played.
So with the non-AQs teased out, the records are:
ACC 3-3 (includes Miami loss vs. Notre Dame) .500
Big East 3-2 .600
Big Ten 3-4 .429
Big XII 3-5 .375
Pac-10 2-1 .667, with Oregon still to play
SEC 4-4 .500, with Auburn still to play
I figured in doing the tallies, I'd focus on BCS auto-qualifying conferences playing one another. Surely playing non-AQs is just a resume padder, right? Actually, non-AQs are currently 3-2 against AQ competitors, and the best the AQs can do is pull even as Boston College plays Nevada in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl tonight. Both the SEC and the Big Ten have losing records vs. non-AQs; UCF over UGA and TCU over Wisconsin, respectively, though the latter, played in the Rose Bowl, really shouldn't count. And my internalized Big East oppression was telling me that surely our conference had the most games against non AQs; actually, the Big East only had one (Louisville over Southern Miss in St. Pete) where the ACC is already 1-1 (College Park over ECU; Air Force over Georgia Tech) with one (Fight Hunger) yet to be played.
So with the non-AQs teased out, the records are:
ACC 3-3 (includes Miami loss vs. Notre Dame) .500
Big East 3-2 .600
Big Ten 3-4 .429
Big XII 3-5 .375
Pac-10 2-1 .667, with Oregon still to play
SEC 4-4 .500, with Auburn still to play
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