Don't Mess With the SEC

Orginally posted 9/20/07

As you probably all realize, I’m a huge football fan and an unabashed numbers geek, so naturally I love breaking down statistics to see who, at least statistically, is the best.

Last week, while eating lunch with some of my friends from church, the assertion was made that the SEC (Southeastern Conference for those of you who aren’t football fans), while consistently good, is vastly overrated by the media. I, of course, took great offense at this and this week vowed to prove my friend wrong.

So, I took the four arguably biggest football conferences – the SEC, Big 10, Big 12, and Pac-10 (I looked at including the Big East and ACC, but due to their swapping of teams with each other and Conference USA, I left them both out) – and broke down their numbers over the last 10 years to see just where each of them stand in the grand scheme of things.

The first two columns contain the total Win-Loss records for all of the teams in each conference along with a %. The next column gives the total number of teams that had at least 10 wins in a single season over the 10 years. Then we have the Win-Loss record for bowl games and a winning percentage. The Nat Champ column gives the number of national championships won by teams from each conference (If there was a split championship, each team was counted). The Top 10 column gives the number of teams that finished in the top 10 and the Top 25 gives the same. The last column gives the total number of players drafted by the NFL through 2005 (the 2006 stats weren’t included on the site I used for my research). The top conference in each category is highlighted in yellow.

Tot	W	L	W-L%	10 W	Bowl W-L	Bowl %	Nat Champ	Top 10	Top 25	Drafted Players
SEC	839	616	57.7%	28	43–32	57.3%	3	21	53	364
Big 12	837	630	57.1%	25	34–39	46.6%	3	19	40	260
Big 10	744	586	55.9%	24	33–34	49.3%	2	18	41	317
Pac 10	665	529	55.7%	21	27–28	49.1%	2	17	28	272

Then I took the four teams by conference with the highest winning percentage over the 10 years and calculated the same statistics.

Top 4	W	L	W-L%	10 W	Bowl W-L	Bowl %	NatCh	Top 10	Top 25	Drafted Players
SEC	370	132	73.7%	19	22–15	59.5%	3	17	34	195
Big 12	374	132	73.9%	23	19–16	54.3%	3	18	29	140
Big 10	357	143	71.4%	16	20–18	52.6%	2	13	27	168
Pac 10	315	173	64.5%	13	15–15	50.0%	2	10	14	115

Lastly I looked at the middle four teams by conference with the next highest winning percentages.

Mid 4	W	L	W-L%	10 W	Bowl W-L	Bowl %	NatCh	Top 10	Top 25	Drafted Players
SEC	287	200	58.9%	8	15–13	53.6%	0	4	15	103
Big 12	273	213	56.2%	2	10–16	38.5%	0	1	8	88
Big 10	264	218	54.8%	7	12–12	50.0%	0	5	12	108
Pac 10	251	225	52.7%	7	10–11	47.6%	0	6	11	107

The Pac 10 has been strong in recent years with the emergence of USC as a national power, but overall their conference contains far too many weak or mediocre teams to be considered at the top. The Big 10 has good players, as evidenced by the number of NFL draftees, but overall it has seen better days. The Big 12 is extremely top heavy, as can be seen by their excellent top 4, but after that they start to lag behind.

So, in my eyes, this solidifies the preeminence of the SEC in the NCAA. What do you think? Does this prove anything?

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