| Phil Steele Blog • March 17, 2016 |
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Which Conference Fared the Best in Non-Conference Play?
In today's blog lets take a look at which conference is the toughest. In Tuesday's blog I showed you who played the toughest schedule (Here). A few components from that go into making my toughest conference including power ratings and bowl records that emphasize bowl wins over ranked teams.
First I'm going to show you the overall non-conference records for each conference. As I mentioned in last years blog this is not an exact science. By only relying on how many bowl wins a conference has or it’s overall record in non-conference play you forget that some conferences non-conference schedules are much tougher than others. Teams that play more non-conference games versus FCS or BCS opponents the wins and losses end up counting the same.
Here are the non-conference season records conference by conference.
2015 Non-Conference Season Records (Conf by Conf)
| SEC | P-12 | B10 | B12 | ACC | AAC | IND | MAC | CUSA | MW | SBC | FCS | |
| SEC | XX | 1-0 | 4-1 | 3-2 | 6-4 | 4-2 | 1-0 | 3-1 | 9-1 | 3-0 | 9-0 | 11-1 |
| P-12 | 0-1 | XX | 3-5 | 1-2 | 2-0 | 1-0 | 3-1 | 1-0 | 2-0 | 12-2 | 3-0 | 7-1 |
| B10 | 1-4 | 5-3 | XX | 2-2 | 4-4 | 1-1 | 4-1 | 11-2 | 5-1 | 6-0 | 2-0 | 7-0 |
| B12 | 2-3 | 2-1 | 2-2 | XX | 1-1 | 3-1 | 0-1 | 2-1 | 6-0 | 0-0 | 1-0 | 7-1 |
| ACC | 4-6 | 0-2 | 4-4 | 1-1 | XX | 4-6 | 3-5 | 3-0 | 2-0 | 0-1 | 4-0 | 16-0 |
| AAC | 2-4 | 0-1 | 1-1 | 1-3 | 6-4 | XX | 3-5 | 3-1 | 3-3 | 2-1 | 2-0 | 9-1 |
| IND | 0-1 | 1-3 | 1-4 | 1-0 | 5-3 | 5-3 | XX | 4-1 | 0-1 | 4-1 | 0-0 | 2-1 |
| MAC | 1-3 | 0-1 | 2-11 | 1-2 | 0-3 | 1-3 | 0-2 | XX | 4-3 | 3-2 | 3-4 | 9-0 |
| CUSA | 1-9 | 0-2 | 1-5 | 0-6 | 0-2 | 3-3 | 1-0 | 3-4 | XX | 0-1 | 5-1 | 9-1 |
| MW | 0-3 | 2-12 | 0-6 | 0-0 | 1-0 | 1-0 | 1-4 | 2-3 | 1-0 | XX | 3-4 | 11-1 |
| SBC | 0-9 | 0-3 | 0-2 | 0-1 | 0-4 | 0-2 | 0-0 | 4-3 | 1-5 | 4-3 | XX | 9-1 |
This next chart shows the overall non-conference record for each conference, their record versus Power 5 conferences and overall records when you take out the conference wins versus FCS schools. We include the FCS losses since they are considered “poor losses.” One quick note Notre Dame is clearly a Power 5 team, but they are not included as one in this chart.
2015 Non-Conference Season Records (Totals)
| OVERALL | VS Power 5 | Minus FCS WINS | |||||||
| W | L | % | W | L | % | W | L | % | |
| SEC | 54 | 12 | 81.8% | 14 | 7 | 66.7% | 43 | 12 | 78.2% |
| PAC 12 | 35 | 13 | 72.9% | 6 | 9 | 40.0% | 28 | 13 | 68.3% |
| BIG 10 | 48 | 18 | 72.7% | 12 | 13 | 48.0% | 41 | 18 | 69.5% |
| BIG 12 | 26 | 11 | 70.3% | 7 | 7 | 50.0% | 19 | 11 | 63.3% |
| ACC | 41 | 25 | 62.1% | 9 | 13 | 40.9% | 25 | 25 | 50.0% |
| AMERICAN | 32 | 24 | 57.1% | 10 | 13 | 43.5% | 23 | 24 | 48.9% |
| INDEPENDENT | 21 | 17 | 55.3% | 8 | 11 | 42.1% | 19 | 17 | 52.8% |
| MAC | 26 | 34 | 43.3% | 4 | 20 | 16.7% | 17 | 34 | 33.3% |
| CUSA | 23 | 34 | 40.4% | 2 | 24 | 7.7% | 14 | 34 | 29.2% |
| MOUNTAIN WEST | 22 | 33 | 40.0% | 3 | 21 | 12.5% | 11 | 33 | 25.0% |
| SUN BELT | 16 | 33 | 32.7% | 0 | 19 | 0.0% | 7 | 33 | 17.5% |
The SEC has topped this chart in overall rank now for 3 straight years. In 2013 they had a #1 finish going 47-9 (83.9%), in 2014 45-7 (86.5%) and in 2015 54-12 (81.8%). In fact they topped this chart in each category finishing #1 in Overall Rank, Vs Power 5 Teams, and Rank without FCS wins.
Note the Pac-12 after going just 13-16 versus the Mountain West from 2008-2012 have turned it around and have gone 34-4 vs them the last 3 seasons. The SEC (14-7) was the only conference with winning record versus Power 5 teams. The Sun Belt was the only conference that was winless against Power 5 teams (0-19) now 1-36 last 2 years. Only five of the eleven conferences had a winning record minus the FCS wins.
2015 Non-Conference Season Records (Ranks)
| Overall | VS Power 5 | Rank w/out | |||||||
| Rank | Rank | FCS Wins | All 3 Ranks | ||||||
| SEC | SEC | SEC | SEC | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
| P-12 | B12 | B10 | B10 | 3 | 3 | 2 | |||
| B10 | B10 | P-12 | B12 | 4 | 2 | 4 | |||
| B12 | AAC | B12 | P-12 | 2 | 7 | 3 | |||
| ACC | IND | IND | ACC | 5 | 4 | 6 | |||
| AAC | ACC | ACC | AAC | 6 | 4 | 7 | |||
| IND | P-12 | AAC | IND | 7 | 5 | 5 | |||
| MAC | MAC | MAC | MAC | 8 | 8 | 8 | |||
| CUSA | MW | CUSA | CUSA | 9 | 10 | 9 | |||
| MW | CUSA | MW | MW | 10 | 9 | 10 | |||
| SBC | SBC | SBC | SBC | 11 | 11 | 11 | |||