Re: Charlie Wiess backs up Stoops claims about SEC
Here's proof positive that Stoops and Weis don't have a clue about what they're saying, as if we needed any more proof.
The Big12 has 10 teams (I know... I know... that's already proof that these institutions are lousy at math) and each team plays 9 conference games each season. Since each conference game involves two conference teams, the total number of conference games in the Big12 each season is (10x9)/2 or 45.
The SEC has 14 teams and each plays 8 conference games each season, so the total number of conference games in the SEC is (14x8)/2 or 61.
Each conference game will produce a W for one of the teams involved and an L for the other. So in the Big12 conference schedule, there are 45 W's and 45 L's to be distributed based on the results of games. In the SEC, there are 61 of each result.
The Big12 had two dominant teams (Oklahoma and Kansas St.) and those teams each had a 7-1 conference record, so that removed 14 W's and 2 L's from the conference schedule result set. That left 29 W's and 43 L's for the remaining 8 Big12 teams. Hapless Kansas took care of 11 of the L's and took no W's, so there were then 29 W's and 32 L's left for the other 7 Big12 teams.
Looking at the remaining W's and L's, if one assumed that the remaining teams would share them in an equitable fashion, there would be an average of 4.14 W's and 4.57 L's for each in conference play. These numbers, when added to the 2 or 3 automatic cupcake victories that most BCS AQ teams schedule each season, would put all of those teams over the minimum of 6 victories needed to be bowl eligible. In the end, these 7 teams were fairly evenly matched and they divided those W's and L's fairly equitably and the top 9 of 10 Big12 teams ended up being bowl eligible.
In the SEC there is a different picture. There were 6 dominant teams having either 7-1 or 6-2 conference records. These 6 teams took 39 W's off the conference schedule, but only 9 L's, leaving only 22 W's but 52 L's for the remaining 8 conference teams. The SEC had it's two Kansas impersonators (the barn and Kentucky), who selflessly left the W's for others, but took 16 L's for themselves. This left 22 W's and 36 L's on the board for the remaining 6 conference teams.
If these remaining teams had been able to equitably split their conference matchups like the Big12 teams did, then they would each have 3.67 W's and 6.00 L's. However, even amongst this middle-of-the-pack group, there were teams not willing to share. Vandy and Mississippi State took 9 W's off the board between them and this meant that the equitable split between the other 4 gave no chance of reaching bowl eligibility (at 2.83 W's each) even with their 2 to 3 wins from their cupcakes.
So the Big12 had more teams bowl eligible because of their equality with EACH OTHER. The SEC had less teams bowl eligible because the middle of the pack teams just didn't have enough W's left on the board after the big boys raided the conference schedule. The Big12's middle of the pack could all have just been equally terrible while the SEC's middle of the pack could have just been equally good, but just not on the same level as the dominant teams of the conference.
The 7 middle of the pack teams that the Big12 sent to bowls had a 4-3 (0.571) record in those bowls. The 3 middle of the pack teams that the SEC sent had a 2-1 (0.667) record. Overall, the Big12 had a 4-5 (0.444) record in bowls while the SEC had a 6-3 (0.667) record in the bowls and the BCSCG. So while the Big12 sent more teams to bowls, they performed poorer than the SEC teams. This seems to imply that of the teams that narrowly reached bowl eligibility, the SEC teams were of higher quality than the Big12 teams. The fact is that only three (30%) Big12 teams (OU, KSU, Texas) were comfortably assured of a bowl invite while 8 (57%) SEC teams (UA, UGA, UF, VU, LSU, TAMU, and MSU) were assured of an invite.
The Big12 should eliminate the pretenders in-conference instead of sending them to the slaughter at the hands of Syracuse and Tulsa.
