Is The SEC Scheduling Worse Than The Big 12?

When Texas Tech beat Texas this weekend it lead me to take a quick look into Tech’s schedule, which I found to be soft up until this point. That ultimately led me to do a quick analysis of the entire Big 12 schedule to see the strength of their opponents. The results, which can be found in one of my earlier posts, showed that the Big 12 as a conference didn’t schedule many tough games and that the great records of the highest ranked teams (i.e. Texas Tech and Texas) came at the expense of beating up on lesser competition.

After some further thought, I decided it would be nice to have the same analysis of another conference. That has led to my research below for the SEC. I chose the SEC because it seems as if a consensus of the “experts” have listed the SEC and Big 12 as the strongest conferences in the country this year. Read into this data however you want, but one thing remains clear, WE NEED A PLAYOFF.

SEC Records Against Top 25 Teams At The Time:

Florida 2-0
Alabama 2-0
Mississippi 1-2
Mississippi St. 1-2
Auburn 0-2
LSU 1-2
Arkansas 2-3
Tennessee 0-4
Kentucky 0-2
South Carolina 0-2
Georgia 2-2
Vanderbilt 2-1

Summary: Just like the Big 12, the top teams in the SEC (Florida and Alabama) have good records against ranked opponents, and that all teams have played at least 2 ranked teams.

SEC Records Against Top 25 Teams At The Time – Non SEC Games:

Florida 0-0
Alabama 1-0 (Win over Clemson)
Mississippi 0-1 (Loss to Wake Forest)
Mississippi St. 0-0
Auburn 0-0
LSU 0-0
Arkansas 1-1 (Win over Tulsa, Loss to Texas)
Tennessee 0-0
Kentucky 0-0
South Carolina 0-0
Georgia 0-0
Vanderbilt 0-0

Summary: This proves that for the most part the SEC is just as bad, if not worse than the Big 12, at scheduling tough non-conference competition. A total of only 4 games, and 2 wins, against teams in the Top 25 for the entire conference is evidence that the SEC builds its records against weak competition. The only wins for the entire conference against ranked opponents are Clemson (which is not even close to being ranked anymore) and Tulsa (from the Conference USA). So just like the Big 12, the best win of anybody outside of the conference is over a non-BCS conference Team (the best win for the Big 12 has been over TCU).

SEC Records Against BCS Conference Teams:

Florida 1-0 (Win over Miami, Fl)
Alabama 1-0 (Win over Clemson)
Mississippi 0-1 (Loss to Wake Forest)
Mississippi St. 0-1 (Loss to Georgia Tech)
Auburn 0-1 (Loss to West Virginia)
LSU 0-0
Arkansas 0-1 (Loss to Texas)
Tennessee 0-1 (Loss to UCLA)
Kentucky 1-0 (Win over Louisville)
South Carolina 1-0 (Win over North Carolina St.)
Georgia 1-0 (Win over Arizona State)
Vanderbilt 0-1 (Loss to Duke)

Summary: While this shows that all teams, except LSU, play one game against a BCS conference team, there isn’t a whole lot of exposure to the other BCS conferences. The overall record against BCS conference teams is 5-6, and that includes a loss to Duke.

Conclusion:

I guess I was a little quick to make a judgment on the scheduling of the Big 12. The SEC is just as bad. I am also going to assume that I would find the same results if I did this for the rest of the BCS conferences. It just shows you the state of college football today, where one loss could mean you’ve blown your shot at the National Championship. The only real way to solve this would be for the NCAA to come to its senses and settle this argument on the field with a playoff. Now with what I was hoping would be insightful analysis proven totally irrelevant, I guess now I can go back to rooting for chaos in the BCS.