Phil Steele's Daily Blog - Monday July 6th

I took a look at the teams of the decade this past week for the 6 BCS conferences. Now lets take a look at the non BCS conference schools and I will do it in two parts.

Here are the cumulative standings for the MAC.

The MAC opened the decade with 13 teams and added UCF in 2002. They were in the league for just 3 years before they left for CUSA along with Marshall. That put them back to 12 teams for two years but they added Temple in 2007. It has been a very even league in terms of overall titles. Marshall, Toledo and Central Michigan all have 2 league titles. Miami O, Akron and Buffalo all have one and 7 of the leagues current teams have 0.

Only two teams have not won at least a share of a division title this decade in Kent St and Eastern Michigan. Miami "O' and Toledo are at the top with 4 each. Marshall, Bowling Green and Northern Illinois have 3 each. Akron, Central Michigan, and Ohio U have 2 each. Tied with 1 are Western Michigan, Buffalo and Ball St.

Despite only being in the league 5 years Marshall still has a shot at the title if no one else steps forward as they have by far the best winning % and are at the top for league titles. The most wins has Toledo, Nill, Miami Oh and BG all in the race which makes them candidates and if Toledo or Central wins the overall title it would be their 3rd which would be the most and give them a chance. Too close to call with a year left.

The Sun Belt began in 2001 with North Texas, Mtenn St, New Mexico St, ULL, ULM, Ark St and Idaho. In 2003 they added Utah St. In 2004 Troy joined the
league as it grew to 9 teams. In 2005 Utah St, Nmex St and Idaho left for the WAC and taking their place was Florida Atlantic and Florida International putting them back at 8. Western Kentucky joins this year to get back to 9. Here are the 8 year standings for the Sun Belt.

North Texas dominated the start of the league with a 25-1 run in the first 4 years with 4 league titles and appeared to have a lock on the team of the decade honors. Since then they are just 5-23 which is shocking. North Texas still has the lead with 4 league titles while newcomer Troy has dominated as of 3 winning at least a share of the last 3 conference titles. Middle Tenn St has 2 and ULL, Ark St, ULM and Flordia Atlantic have 1 each.

If Troy wins the title as I expect this year than I would crown them team of the decade. The only challenger is North Texas and if they won the Sun Belt this year they would have the most conference wins and most titles and win it.

Tomorrow I will be doing the final 3 non BCS conferences in the Mountain West, the WAC and CUSA. Interestingly one team TCU was in each of those conferences this decade which makes getting the standings a little tougher for me to compile. I am interested to see which are the best teams in those three leagues. Just off the top of my head I would say BYU in the MWC, Southern Miss in CUSA and Boise in the WAC. Not all my top of the head guesses have been correct as the mind tends to forget how strong teams were at the start of the decade and just remembers the last few years.

58 DAYS UNTIL THE FIRST COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAME!!