I am very happy that Al Golden was named the new Miami, Fl coach this past weekend. Naturally I have followed Golden over the past numerous years in the MAC and I thought he did a terrific job at Temple. Now he inherits one of the best situations this upcoming season as the Hurricanes have one of the most talented rosters of any team in the ACC. The firing of Shannon was a move that had to be made because of the underachieving results from the past couple of years and there is no doubt in my mind that Golden will get the most out of the current talent at hand.  Overall, this is a huge positive for both Golden and Miami, Fl.

Another big name school announced their new coach this past weekend and that was Florida naming Texas DC Will Muschamp as the replacement for Urban Meyer. This is an interesting and surprising move by the Gators but Muschamp does have a SEC pedigree similar to Gene Chizik at Auburn (although Chizik had 2 yrs of HC experience prior) and coached along side FSU’s Jimbo Fisher when they were on Nick Saban’s LSU staff. Muschamp similar to Golden inherits a team that underperformed this past season losing 5 games and despite Texas having a losing record TY, it was not Muschamp’s fault as his defense finished as my #10 overall D allowing just 301 ypg.

One of the great debates in college football every year is which conference is the best. Fans across the country have their opinions and are usually divided to which area they live in. Many fans living in the Midwest have always felt that the Big 10 has been the best conference, while fans living in the South clearly feel that the SEC is the best. One of the ways in determining who has the best conference is taking the conference vs conference records. Since many schools schedule weaker opponents in their non-conference schedule, another key determination is taking the conference record vs bcs conferences.

It seems that every year the SEC has been rated as my top conference and so far through the regular season, the SEC remains the top conference in college football with a 41-7 (85.4%) overall record against other conferences. Also the SEC for the 5th straight year has a team in the national title game and they scored 10 wins against BCS Conf opp which was more than any other conf.

While Big 12 power Texas had a poor season, Oklahoma St and Missouri filled the void nicely as both teams had 10 win seasons this year as the Big 12 finished with a 40-8 record against other conferences. It will be interesting to see how the conference shakes out moving forward with the loss of Nebraska and Colorado next year but this year, the conference made its case for being the 2nd best conference in America.

With three teams finishing the season with an overall record of 11-1, the Big 10 moved up these rankings this year with a 35-9 record. It is interesting to see the conf with just 9 gms played overall against BCS conf tms. With the addition of Nebraska next year, it is clear that the Big 10 will continue to move up these rankings.

Another couple of interesting figures was the PAC finishing with a strong 9-4 record against BCS conf teams which was better than any other conference. The Independents also had a good year as all 3 teams will be bowling and also thanks to strong seasons by Boise St, Nevada and Hawaii, the WAC finished ahead of the MWC and CUSA this year.

Since many lower tier teams in the conferences bring down the conferences overall record, another way to determine who has the best conference is to analyze the top teams. This is a chart of conference vs conference records using only the bowl participants.

The Big 12 was again impressive here with an overall mark of 30-2 (93.8%). The SEC has 10 bowl teams this year and those teams went 37-3 which easily was the most wins of any conference. The Big 10 again came in 3rd while the Pac-10 with only 4 bowl teams this year went 10-2. The WAC again outperformed the other non-BCS conf and it is interesting to see that both the ACC and Big East bowl teams underperformed.