The first category I’ll discuss to settle the debate is out of conference games. Keep in mind, this article will focus on regular season out of conference games, not bowl games. Bowl games will be a separate article on it own. We can look at this objectively and add up the out of conference records of each team in a conference and compare the cumulative record with other conferences. This is what we’ll do first, but after taking a look at the facts, I’m going to add my own subjectivity to the debate.

The following is a table which details the out of conference results of every team in each of the six BCS conferences. You can see that the Big XII ended up with the best cumulative record at 31-5, a batting average of .861. The Big XII is followed by the Big Ten at 26-6 (.813) and the next spot is a tie between the ACC and the SEC. These two conferences have identical records of 27-9 (.750). Fifth place is held by the Pac-10 at 23-8 (.742) and bringing up the rear is the Big East at 19-13 (.594).

Before you OU, Texas, and Nebraska fans get too excited, let’s take a look at this more closely. Let’s compare the cumulative records of the conferences without the cream puffs. That’s right Kansas State: your three impressive wins against Florida International, @ Marshall, and North Texas don’t count. I’ll give it to you that Marshall has been a good team in the recent past and when you scheduled that road game years ago it was an intriguing matchup. But the Thundering Herd finished 4-7 last year; they were hardly a heavyweight in 2005.

Looking at the cumulative records against other BCS teams (including Notre Dame) again shows the Big XII as the top conference in terms of winning percentage. The Big XII finished a combined 4-3 for a percentage of .571. The ACC comes in second in meaningful out of conference games at 9-7 (.563). They’re followed by the Big Ten (7-6, .538), the Pac-10 (5-5, .500), the SEC (4-6, .400), and bringing up the rear again is the Big East (4-11, .267).

Let’s talk about these “meaningful games” a little more. Even though the Big XII does have the best winning percentage, they play by far the fewest number of games against quality competition. Seven of 37 Big XII out of conference games were against BCS teams whereas the ACC played 16 out of 36. The Big Ten played 13 out of their 32 out of conference games against the big boys, the Pac-10 played 10 out of 31 and the SEC played 10 out of 36. Even the Big East, who seems to comes in last in this category so far plays a much higher percentage of their out of conference games against BCS teams: 15 out of 32.

If we’re going to really decide who had the most impressive out of conference resumé, we need to dig deeper than that. We need to look at the extreme cases: how did each conference do in the really big games and did they fall victim to any embarrassing debacles that make you question how strong that conference really is?

Starting with the Big XII, we see that the most impressive wins were Iowa State’s win over their in-state rival from the Big Ten and the obvious epic battle in Columbus, which was won by the Longhorns from Austin. The most embarrassing losses were OU’s home loss to TCU and Missou’s home loss against New Mexico. The conference can really hang its hat on the Texas win over the Buckeyes but looking through the rest of the season’s results really exposes a lack of tough games on the part of almost every team outside of that.

What about the other conferences? The Big Ten’s only impressive win was Michigan State’s win in South Bend but on the other hand there were no embarrassing losses. All six of the Big Ten’s out of conference losses were to other BCS teams or Notre Dame. This means the Big Ten won every single one of the games it was supposed to but didn’t really win a big one. Had Ohio State pulled out the home win against Texas, the conference would have scored higher in this category.

The ACC can boast some impressive wins. These include Clemson’s win on the road against rival South Carolina, Georgia Tech’s opening day upset at Auburn, and Virginia Tech’s road win over West Virginia – the Mountaineer’s only loss of the season. Except for Duke’s losses at ECU and at home against Navy, the ACC can claim the same thing as the Big Ten: no losses against non-BCS teams. So, throw Duke out and you’ve got a conference with some impressive wins coupled with the fact that there were no hiccups. Of course, it’s not fair to throw out Duke unless each conference’s worst team is thrown out as well.

The SEC can also boast some impressive wins which are highlighted by Florida’s lopsided win over ACC Champ FSU and Georgia’s win over Georgia Tech in Atlanta. The embarrassing losses all come from the bottom of the conference: Ole Miss’ home loss against Wyoming, Mississippi State’s loss at home against Houston, and worst of all was Vandy’s home loss against Middle Tennessee State. The SEC is so close to the ACC in this category and just like the ACC, we must include the bad losses by the bad SEC teams just like Duke’s loss to a bad ECU team.

Any college football fan would only need one guess to figure out that USC has the Pac-10’s most impressive win. The Trojans squeaked out a win in South Bend that will go down as one of the season’s best games. Throw in UCLA’s win over Oklahoma as well – even though the Sooners were “down” in 2005. The Pac-10 has a few losses to non-BCS teams such as Arizona’s defeat at Utah and Washington’s loss at Air Force, but perhaps no one in the country suffered as much as Stanford fans when the Cardinal lost at home to Division I-AA opponent UC-Davis.

Three of the four Big East wins over BCS teams come from Louisville’s resumé. The Cardinals took care of Kentucky, Oregon State, and UNC – not exactly goliaths. The other impressive win came in West Virginia’s win over Maryland. On the bright side for the conference, there were only two non-BCS losses and these weren’t as embarrassing as some of the other conferences. Cincinnati lost on the road to Miami of Ohio and Pitt lost at Ohio. The Big East really had neither great wins nor horrible losses.

So let’s get to a conclusion already! No one could objectively put the Big East anywhere but sixth place in the out of conference category. Overall, it’s the only conference below .600 in winning percentage and the vs. BCS record is laughable at 4-11. The conference does do well in scheduling the big boys like Notre Dame, Penn State, Nebraska, Miami, Virginia Tech, and Florida State. Unfortunately, the Big East is a cumulative 0-8 against these teams. The conference has no big wins and no big losses but I have no big reason to put them anywhere but dead last among BCS conferences.

I’m going to put the Pac-10 in fifth place. They rank fifth in overall winning percentage and fourth against BCS quality competition but they don’t have enough impressive wins to warrant placing them higher overall than where they rank in those two sub-categories. The Pac-10 scheduled plenty of powder puffs like Grambling, Rice, Portland State, and Sacramento State and didn’t schedule enough big boys to counter this.

You may be surprised to find out that I put the Big XII in fourth place. They rank first in overall winning percentage and first against BCS competition but these statistics are very misleading in that the conference has by far the easiest non-conference schedule. I’m punishing the Big XII for scheduling so many powder puffs. Every team puts easy games on its schedule, but no one does it at the same frequency as the teams in the Big XII. Thirty of 37 games against mid-majors and I-AA teams is embarrassing. This sort of scheduling is what some people complain is wrong with college football. You can’t take away Texas’ huge win on the road against Ohio State but you can take away almost everything else the Big XII did out of conference.

The Big Ten comes in third in this category. The Big Ten came in second in overall winning percentage and third vs. BCS competition. This is impressive, but the reason why I put them as low as third was because the conference had seven out of conference wins against BCS teams. These seven wins were against Kentucky, Rutgers, Notre Dame, South Florida, Cincinnati, Arizona, and UNC. Michigan State’s win at Notre Dame was good, but overall the conference went 1-2 against the Golden Domers because Purdue and Michigan both lost to them. Meanwhile, the Big Ten’s six BCS losses were against Cal, Iowa State, Notre Dame (twice), Arizona State, and Texas. The Big Ten did everything they were supposed to do, but didn’t do enough to beat out the ACC or SEC.

It’s a close call to choose between the ACC and the SEC. The conferences had identical overall records but the ACC has a much better record against BCS teams. The ACC beat Texas A&M, South Carolina, Syracuse (twice), Auburn, UConn, Colorado, South Florida, and West Virginia. The SEC beat Florida State, Georgia Tech, Arizona State, and Wake Forest. The ACC lost to Florida, Georgia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Louisville, Vanderbilt, and Nebraska. The SEC lost to USC, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Indiana, Clemson, and Notre Dame.

Outside of in-state rivalry wins against FSU and Georgia Tech, the SEC can’t really boast as many big wins as the ACC can. You probably can’t point to two wins the ACC had that are as big as those two, but the volume is more impressive. Both conferences had their fair share of cupcakes on the schedule, but the ACC simply had more games against tough competition than the SEC did – lots more. Couple that with the fact that the SEC lost more games against this tough competition than they won and we have a decision. The ACC had the best year in the category of non-conference games.

So, after our first article, the standings are:

1.                  ACC

2.                  SEC

3.                  Big Ten

4.                  Big XII

5.                  Pac-10

6.                  Big East