Nittany White Out Round Table: Part I
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Nittany White Out Round Table: Part I
March 16, 2010 – | View Comments

With spring practices a little more than a week away form starting for the Nittany Lions and the Blue White game about a month away we here at Nittany White Out decided we should getting back in gear with some good old-fashioned round table debating …

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The Tornado Alley Divide: MWC vs Big East

Submitted by Charlie on October 23, 2009 – View Comments

Forget the North / South divide. It seems the country is torn right down the middle when determining whether the Big East or Mountain West is the better conference. Although the Big East is a watered down version of the middling ACC, it is still clearly the superior conference when compared to the high school version of college football that is the Mountain West conference.

Although we could compare the BCS and poll positions of teams from either conference, it is hard to ignore the validity in claims of bias most mid-major supporters accuse voters of. So putting aside voter driven polls altogether, let’s take a look at the computers and their unbiased judgment of both conferences.

Sagarin numbers for the Big East:

Sagarin Rank Sagarin Rating Strength of Schedule
Cincinnati 8 87.92 71
Pittsburgh 24 79.16 66
South Florida 25 79.16 132
West Virginia 39 76.99 84
Connecticut 52 74.82 81
Rutgers 78 68.76 145
Louisville 94 65.56 41
Syracuse 107 63.50 49

Sagarin numbers for the Mountain West:

Sagarin Rank Sagarin Rating Strength of Schedule
TCU 11 85.40 53
Utah 18 80.79 44
BYU 28 78.59 79
Air Force 61 72.32 107
Colorado State 64 71.13 17
San Diego State 101 64.17 54
Wyoming 110 62.90 96
UNLV 120 61.10 72
New Mexico 162 50.33 64

Average Sagarin numbers for Big East vs Mountain West:

Average Sagarin Rank Average Sagarin Rating Average Strength of Schedule
Big East 53.375 74.48 83.625
Moutain West 75.000 69.64 65.111

Are TCU and Utah better than Cincinnati and Pittsburgh? Maybe, but a conference as a whole, the Mountain West is nowhere close to the Big East.

In fact of the 130 computer rankings available, all 130 rank the Mountain West 8th or occasionally 7th as a conference compared to the Big East averaging in at 4th. In fact, none of the 130 computer based rankings have the Mountain West higher as a conference than the Big East.

So I don’t know what 42% of the nation is smoking, but the Mountain West is clearly not a better conference than the Big East or any BCS conference for that matter.

I do not enjoy defending the Big East as a conference, but to see that there are misinformed people out there who could even possibly consider the Mountain West anything other than a tough high school caliber conference is infuriating and flat out wrong and the numbers clearly back that up.

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  • tim
    That link about the 130 computer rankings actually shows the Big East as the 3rd best conference, on average... not the 4th.
  • That actually highlights an even bigger gap between the Big East and MWC. Thanks Tim.
  • psudevon
    The Mountain West is definitely stronger at the top. TCU, Utah, and BYU would all be favored in a neutral site game against any team other than Cincinnati from the Big East, but you can't get too much depth in a non-BCS conference. However, a team made up from the best of the non-BCS teams (out west, that is) would immediately become one of the best conferences in the NCAA:
    Boise State
    BYU
    TCU
    Utah
    Fresno State
    Air Force
    Hawaii
    Colorado State
    Nevada


    That's a pretty good conference, top to bottom.
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