Rating the 2012 Non-Conference Slate: Prologue

Yes folks, we're back! Let's talk about football.

We've slightly tweaked the rules for this scheduling rating thing. For starters, there are four transitional members to the top level of Division I this year: Massachusetts, South Alabama, Texas State, and Texas-San Antonio. I've counted each of these as half a DI-AA (or DI-FCS) team, as they are not (for the most part) eligible for bowl games or conference championships. In years past, we also stuck to rating all BCS conference teams with a 0.25, 0.5, .75, or 1. However, we have now begun employing the zero rating for certain teams: Boston College, Duke, Maryland, Iowa State, Kansas, Connecticut, Temple, Indiana, Minnesota, Purdue, Colorado, and Kentucky. Remember, this rating is a entirely subjective rating on our part of teams that we consider the "most desirable" for out-of-conference play, which as just as much to do with perception as it does them actually being any good (hence why Notre Dame still carries a 0.75).

Also worth noting is the list of teams rated with a "1": Florida State, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas, Michigan, Michigan State, Nebraska, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Oregon, Southern California, Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana State. Breaking it down by conference, that's 2 for the ACC, 3 for the Big 12, 0 for the Big East, 5 for the Big Ten, 2 for the Pac-12, and 5 for the SEC.

Averaging everything out by conference, and you get:

1. SEC (0.696 legit average)
2. Big Ten (0.583)
3. Big 12 (0.527)
4. Pac-12 (0.5)
5. ACC (0.479)
6. Big East (0.357)

The addition of zeroes definitely hurt the ACC, Big East, and Big 12 the most, but this is probably a more accurate rating overall.

Anyway, we'll be doing the usual conference-by-conference break down over the next several days. Until then!