Rating the 2011 Non-Conference Slate: Prologue

The rules from 2008 still apply, so let's do this.

As per usual, let's run down the list of "1"s, that is, the teams we feel are the most desirable to play this year: Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Miami (whoops), Michigan, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State (double whoops), Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oregon, Penn State, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, Southern Cal, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

By conference, that's 3 for the ACC, 4 for the Big 12, 1 for the Big East, 5 for the Big Ten, 1 for the Mountain West, 2 for the Pac-12, and 5 for the SEC.

Taking the entire set of teams for each conference into account, you get the follow averages:

1. SEC (0.771 average)
2. Big 12 (0.65)
3. Big Ten (0.64583)
4. ACC (0.625)
5. Pac-12 (0.604)
6. Big East (0.4375)

The Big 12 seemed to benefit in a big way from gaining another "1" and also losing some dead weight in the form of Colorado, it appears. The Pac-12 didn't get worse so much as everyone else got a little better, well, except for the Big East, which is hurt by having UConn, Louisville, Rutgers, and Syracuse getting 0.25's this year (the lowest possible rating for a BCS conference team).


We'll spend the next seven posts or so examining each conference individually and wrapping things up, as per usual, hopefully in time for the start of the season. First, as usual, is the Atlantic Coast Conference.