I realize this is a meaningless waste of time, given how early it is and that most teams haven't played a conference game yet. But in my defense, aren't most things posted on a message board more or less a waste of time?

Anyhoo, I went on ESPN to check the Pac-12 standings this morning. I noticed that ESPN coincidently puts the Pac-12 standings right next to the SEC standings. Seeing the teams right across from each other, I started to think about how our undefeated teams (I know, I know, its only been three games) would match up with theirs, how our last place teams would match up, and so on and so on.

I acknowledge that the Pac-12 hasn't done very well in non-conference games this year. That being said, here is how I think it would work out if our teams matched up with theirs in a truly neutral site (say, Chicago).

I realize this exercise was a total waste of time and completely hypothetical, but I am procrastinating on a paper so give me a break. I honestly think we would break even with the SEC right now.


Pac-12 North vs. SEC East:

stanfurd v. Florida = Furd
Cal v. South Carolina = Cal
Oregon v. Vandy = Oregon rolls
UW v. Kentucky = Washington
Washington State v. Tennessee = Tennessee rolls
Oregon State v. Georgia = Georgia.

Pac-12 South vs. SEC West:

$C v. LSU = LSU
ASU v. Auburn = Auburn
Colorado v. Alabama = Bama rolls
UCLA v. Arkansas = Arkansas rolls
Utah v. Ole Miss = Utah
Arizona v. Mississippi St. = Arizona

Grand totals: Pac-12 - 6 ; SEC - 6

Not sure about Cal winning that game and pretty sure Arizona gets smoked by M State.

Cal beating south carolina?? I hate to think of the mean things Alshon Jeffries would do to our secondary -- yikes.
Their d line would also toss our oline around.
A game at south Carolina might result in 7 sacks for the gamecocks.

Most of the Pac12 teams are 0-0 so the standing match-ups are pretty arbitrary.

Agree that SC takes Cal and Arizona loses

You sure rigged the matchups in our favor.
Let's take their 8 vs our best 8.

Alabama vs Stanford -- probably bama
LSU vs Oregon -- LSU
Florida vs USC -- Florida
Arkansas vs ASU -- arky all day.
South Carolina vs Cal -- probably south Carolina
Auburn vs Washington -- auburn favored
Tennessee vs Utah -- Pick em
Mississippi State vs Arizona -- MSU

I see the sec team being the favorite in virtually all of these match ups. There is no denying how strong that league is this year. I didn't even include Georgia, who is a solid team in their own right.

Ucla, cal, and Washington NEED to be -- and are capable of being -- far better teams on a year-to-year basis in order for our conferences depth to rival theirs.

LafayetteBear;576668 said:

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True, Phobic, but Carolina's QB (Garcia) was, is and always will be the picture of mediocrity. He's their Kevin Riley.

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Even Kevin Riley was dangerous when he had the weapons Garcia has. Look at Riley's stats in the two games he played in 2007.

This is not a good year to compare the Pac12 to the SEC.

This board loves to say that the ESPN hype machine is just that, all hype, and then we go and buy into it.

For most of the past decade, the SEC has had the reputation of being the toughest conference. However, over the past 13 years (1998 - 2010), the Pac-10 leads the SEC 12-10 (.545). So how much stock can one really put in that reputation? And since the only machup between the two conferences so far this year is ORE and LSU, the rest is speculation that I would argue is heavily influenced by the aforementioned hype machine. Is the SEC stronger than the PAC-12 this year? Maybe, but there's a big difference between being favored due to conference hype, and actually playing and winning games. IMHO, the biggest factor in any of these interconference matchups is where the game is played. PAC teams don't do so well in SEC territory, and the SEC teams (when they make the rare trip) don't tend to fair as well out here either.

bearterritory;576694 said:

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This board loves to say that the ESPN hype machine is just that, all hype, and then we go and buy into it.

For most of the past decade, the SEC has had the reputation of being the toughest conference. However, over the past 13 years (1998 - 2010), the Pac-10 leads the SEC 12-10 (.545). So how much stock can one really put in that reputation? And since the only machup between the two conferences so far this year is ORE and LSU, the rest is speculation that I would argue is heavily influenced by the aforementioned hype machine. Is the SEC stronger than the PAC-12 this year? Maybe, but there's a big difference between being favored due to conference hype, and actually playing and winning games. IMHO, the biggest factor in any of these interconference matchups is where the game is played. PAC teams don't do so well in SEC territory, and the SEC teams (when they make the rare trip) don't tend to fair as well out here either.

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Yes, exactly. In fact, in recent years, all of the major BCS conferences are pretty close to .500 in games against each other (except the Big East, which is more like .450 due to the fact that the conference has been raided so many times). The level of competition all of the leagues is approximately the same. The rest is hype (and who schedules more non-conference patsies).

bearterritory;576694 said:

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This board loves to say that the ESPN hype machine is just that, all hype, and then we go and buy into it.

For most of the past decade, the SECe has had the reputation of being the toughest conference. However, over the past 13 years (1998 - 2010), the Pac-10 leads the SEC 12-10 (.545). So how much stock can one really put in that reputation? And since the only machup between the two conferences so far this year is ORE and LSU, the rest is speculation that I would argue is heavily influenced by the aforementioned hype machine. Is the SEC stronger than the PAC-12 this year? Maybe, but there's a big difference between being favored due to conference hype, and actually playing and winning games. IMHO, the biggest factor in any of these interconference matchups is where the game is played. PAC teams don't do so well in SEC territory, and the SEC teams (when they make the rare trip) don't tend to fair as well out here either.

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Hype machine? The proof is right in front of your eyes and yet you intentionally hide behind a meaningless statistic like the one above. The sec is far stronger than it was in 1998. Haven't you been watching the national championship game the last six years? Alabama, LSU Florida and auburn have all won titles in the past six years. Thats not hype, that's just impressive.
And if you want head towhead statisitcs, why from '98.
Why not from 2001, or 2006? I know why, it would ruin your argument.

Holmoephobic;576716 said:

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Hype machine? The proof is right in front of your eyes and yet you intentionally hide behind a meaningless statistic like the one above. The sec is far stronger than it was in 1998. Haven't you been watching the national championship game the last six years? Alabama, LSU Florida and auburn have all won titles in the past six years. Thats not hype, that's just impressive.
And if you want head towhead statisitcs, why from '98.
Why not from 2001, or 2006? I know why, it would ruin your argument.

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One correction...the TOP teams of the SEC have been the strongest...if you factor in some of the miserable showings by their bottom feeders, the conference as a WHOLE is maybe a tad better.....notwithstanding WSU's terrible few years, there have been years where our lower ranked teams were much better than Vandy, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Arky and even Miss. St which hasn't been very good until the last couple of years...

I don't agree. Arkys been good since that 2004 team, which featured DMC, Felix jones, and Payton Hillis all on the same team!
The emergence of missisippi state puts that conference over the top. Even vandy, Kentucky, and ole miss have won bowl games in the past 5 years. That's more than wazzu can say. Ole Miss even beat that 1-loss ttech team in the cottonbowl a few years ago.

If USC, UCLA, Oregon and Cal had all won national titles in the last decade, we would never tire of bragging about the Pac 12's total and complete superiority.

Holmoephobic;576676 said:

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You sure rigged the matchups in our favor.
Let's take their 8 vs our best 8.

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I just took them the way ESPN lined them up right next to each other. I realize its arbitrary, but I am bored.

Holmoephobic;576730 said:

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I don't agree. Arkys been good since that 2004 team, which featured DMC, Felix jones, and Payton Hillis all on the same team!
The emergence of missisippi state puts that conference over the top. Even vandy, Kentucky, and ole miss have won bowl games in the past 5 years. That's more than wazzu can say. Ole Miss even beat that 1-loss ttech team in the cottonbowl a few years ago.

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I don't want to get into it over Arky but their record:

2004 5-6 lousy yeqr
2005 4-7 lousy year
2006 10-4 Very good year
2007 8-5 good year
2008 5-7 lousy year
2009 8-5 good yea
2010 10-3. Very good year. good QB..

So I still feel that that have only been really good the last few years... In the last 6 years or so, Kentucky won a bowl game but they were one of those teams that barely made a bowl with a 6-6 record....THIS is the exact reason why the bottom of the SEC might appear better because they play 8 conference games and we play 9. 6-6 is nothing to brag about but we've had multiple teams miss a bowl the last few years, maybe even us last year because we played 3 OOC teams instead of 4.... I will give the SEC their due and have, but like the rest of the conferences, the number of bowl appearances is pumped up by that one more extra OOC game....otherwise, you'd have a ton of 5-7 SEC teams not make bowl games...check out their stats..a ton of 7-6 seasons by a lot of them.

I made an argument the other day on a realignment thread that the SEC advantage is that they've systematically used their TV $$$ to hire better coaches than the Pac-12.

http://www.coacheshotseat.com/SalariesContracts.htm

The SEC has 6 of the top 11 highest paid head coaches, and they pay their OCs and DCs around 2x the Pac-12 average (although I couldn't find more recent data).

http://www.rollbamaroll.com/2010/6/28/1535532/a-comparison-of-sec-coaches

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/huskies/2010095948_assistantschart20.html

The athletic talent is equal if not better in the Pac-12, but if you go school by school, I'd take the SEC coaches more often:

1. Florida (Muschamp) v USC (Kiffin): SEC
2. LSU (Miles) v Oregon (Kelly): tie
3. Alabama (Saban) v Stanford (Shaw): SEC
4. Auburn (Chizik) v Utah (Whittingham): tie
5. Georgia (Richt) v Cal (Tedford): tie
6. South Carolina (Spurrier) v OSU (Riley): tie
7. Tennessee (Dooley) v UCLA (Neuheisel): SEC
8. Arkansas (Petrino) v ASU (Erickson): SEC
9. Ole Miss (Nutt) v Washington (Sarkisian): Pac-12
10. Miss St (Mullen) v Colorado (Embree): SEC
11. Vanderbilt (Franklin) v WSU (Wulff): who cares
12. Kentucky (Philips) v Arizona (Stoops): who cares

As a Bear, I'm quite happy with Kiffin and Neuheisel in LA, but as a Pac-12 fan, those 2 stand out as needing replacements, along with ASU.

Conferences are judged at the top. Nobody cares if OSU can beat Mississippi State; they care who wins BCS games. At the top there is no comparison between the SEC and other conferences.

National champions: SEC - 7
Big 12- 2
All others- 1

Record in BCS games
SEC 15-6
Pac10 9-5
Big10 10-10
Big 12 5-7
Big East 6-7
ACC 2-11

Holmoephobic;576716 said:

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Hype machine? The proof is right in front of your eyes and yet you intentionally hide behind a meaningless statistic like the one above. The sec is far stronger than it was in 1998. Haven't you been watching the national championship game the last six years? Alabama, LSU Florida and auburn have all won titles in the past six years. Thats not hype, that's just impressive.
And if you want head towhead statisitcs, why from '98.
Why not from 2001, or 2006? I know why, it would ruin your argument.

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I watched the championship game between Auburn and Oregon about 8 months ago. With less than a minute remaining, Auburn won by 2 points. The game was played on a neutral field and the teams had sufficient time to practice and get healthy. It's hard to come away from that game and say the SEC is superior to the Pac12. Those two teams were both exceptional. Someone has to win and someone has to lose and that's all that separated them.

Holmoephobic;576716 said:

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Hype machine? The proof is right in front of your eyes and yet you intentionally hide behind a meaningless statistic like the one above. The sec is far stronger than it was in 1998. Haven't you been watching the national championship game the last six years? Alabama, LSU Florida and auburn have all won titles in the past six years. Thats not hype, that's just impressive.
And if you want head towhead statisitcs, why from '98.
Why not from 2001, or 2006? I know why, it would ruin your argument.

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I'm not sure what Alabama, LSU, Florida, and Auburn having won championships in prior seasons has to do with the quality of the SEC this season. In fact, I'd argue that it just contributes to the hype about those teams going in to any subsequent year, even if some of those teams aren't that good this year (as I suspect Auburn isn't).

I also suspect that if you use any particular head-to-head statistic on SEC vs. Pac-10, it won't be that different. The two leagues have played each other roughly even in recent years. However, taking it back to 1998 gives us a sufficient number of games to be meaningful; if we looked at one season and the P10 and SEC played each other twice and the SEC won both, that wouldn't tell us much. Besides, it's not like the Pac-10 was all that great in 1998 or 1999 either; I'd say the comparison is fair.

Is the SEC the toughest conference right now? Probably. It's also probably the best historically. But it's by a small margin over the other major conferences, not a far-and-away obvious advantage.

6bear6;576778 said:

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I watched the championship game between Auburn and Oregon about 8 months ago. With less than a minute remaining, Auburn won by 2 points. The game was played on a neutral field and the teams had sufficient time to practice and get healthy. It's hard to come away from that game and say the SEC is superior to the Pac12. Those two teams were both exceptional. Someone has to win and someone has to lose and that's all that separated them.

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Yep, our victory cry is, "we almost beat the SEC last year!"
Their victory cry, " Six straight titles from four different teams"
But sure, we're pretty much the SEC... except without the titles

sycasey;576790 said:

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I'm not sure what Alabama, LSU, Florida, and Auburn having won championships in prior seasons has to do with the quality of the SEC this season. In fact, I'd argue that it just contributes to the hype about those teams going in to any subsequent year, even if some of those teams aren't that good this year (as I suspect Auburn isn't).

I also suspect that if you use any particular head-to-head statistic on SEC vs. Pac-10, it won't be that different. The two leagues have played each other roughly even in recent years. However, taking it back to 1998 gives us a sufficient number of games to be meaningful; if we looked at one season and the P10 and SEC played each other twice and the SEC won both, that wouldn't tell us much. Besides, it's not like the Pac-10 was all that great in 1998 or 1999 either; I'd say the comparison is fair.

Is the SEC the toughest conference right now? Probably. It's also probably the best historically. But it's by a small margin over the other major conferences, not a far-and-away obvious advantage.

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Sure, and Cal's prior-season history on the road is meaningless as well?
I'm not sure why you think the SEC is barely better than most other conferences when pretty much all evidence points to the contrary.
They have the highest paid and best Coaches/Assistant coaches.
They produce the most NFL players
They have won the last Six national titles
They have the best winning percentage against BCS conferences
They have the most ranked teams out of any conference.
They have six teams currently ranked in the top 15 (but I'm sure they're all overrated)
What else do you want?

Holmoephobic;576716 said:

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Hype machine? The proof is right in front of your eyes and yet you intentionally hide behind a meaningless statistic like the one above. The sec is far stronger than it was in 1998. Haven't you been watching the national championship game the last six years? Alabama, LSU Florida and auburn have all won titles in the past six years. Thats not hype, that's just impressive.
And if you want head towhead statisitcs, why from '98.
Why not from 2001, or 2006? I know why, it would ruin your argument.

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The point of my post was not to claim that one conference is better than the other, nor to say that the sec isn't good, but only to suggest that the perception espoused by espn due to their mega contract with the sec leaves the casual observer with the idea that the sec is by far the best conference. Are they the best? Perhaps. Is it so clear cut as to be beyond debate? Not as much as the talking heads make it out to be. (You know, they play 4 quarters of football in the SEC.)

The reason I showed the record going back to 98 is because I happened across it here at http://www.secsportsfan.com, which I assume isn't cherry picking stats to make the PAC look good. But since you so politely asked, here is the SEC record vs the PAC since 2002, including bowl games:
SEC-PAC
2002 0-2
2003 1-2
2004 1-0
2005 1-1
2006 3-1
2007 0-1
2008 1-1
2009 2-1
2010 1-1

total 10-10

Yup, you got me. I sure did make my data look awesome by going back to 98. With the exception of 2006 where the SEC owned us, things look pretty balanced, with perhaps a slight edge going to the SEC in the last 3 years (4-3). But again, with such a small sample size, I would want to know more about what teams played and where the games were played to get a better feel for things.

Holmoephobic;576800 said:

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Sure, and Cal's prior-season history on the road is meaningless as well?
I'm not sure why you think the SEC is barely better than most other conferences when pretty much all evidence points to the contrary.
They have the highest paid and best Coaches/Assistant coaches.
They produce the most NFL players
They have won the last Six national titles
They have the best winning percentage against BCS conferences
They have the most ranked teams out of any conference.
They have six teams currently ranked in the top 15 (but I'm sure they're all overrated)
What else do you want?

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Some of these points are legit, others less so. I think the coaching pay is a legit argument. They care more for sure and put their money up to prove it. NFL players is also a great metric, as it shows they have more talent and are doing a good job of developing that talent. Ranked teams is just a bogus argument. That's exactly the perception issue we are talking about. The 6 national titles is impressive. It definitely means they've had some top teams. However, part of winning a title is being given the opportunity to play in the game, and their hype machine helps them out here. As I showed in another post, the PAC vs SEC record is pretty even over recent history, so who's to say if the PAC's best team played the SEC's best team at the end of every season, the records also wouldn't be fairly even? There's no way to know, which brings me back to my original point that I find the espn overhyping of the SEC tiresome a bit misleading.

Holmoephobic;576800 said:

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They have the highest paid and best Coaches/Assistant coaches.

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Just having more money doesn't make you better. On-field results do.

Holmoephobic;576800 said:

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They produce the most NFL players

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How many more, per team? The Pac-10 has produced a lot too.

Holmoephobic;576800 said:

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They have won the last Six national titles

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The top teams are great. It doesn't mean the entire conference is the strongest, top-to-bottom, for the entire year. Also, they get more teams in the title game partially because of that hype (which helps their poll rankings).

Holmoephobic;576800 said:

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They have the best winning percentage against BCS conferences

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Source? Over what period of time? And by how many percentage points?

Holmoephobic;576800 said:

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They have the most ranked teams out of any conference.
They have six teams currently ranked in the top 15 (but I'm sure they're all overrated)

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Yes, because rankings after 3 games are so meaningful. This is EXACTLY the kind of no-substance hype we're talking about. How often does this happen after the entire season has played out?

Holmoephobic;576800 said:

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What else do you want?

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More meaningful evidence, like how the teams do when they play each other.

This analysis is wishful thinking from the start. South Carolina would run wild against our d-line and then throw over the top once we tried to stop Lattimore from going for over 200 yards. SC's offense is so far superior to anything the Bears have seen this year it's not even close. Did anybody watch the LSU/Oregon game and see how LSU's front-line man handled Oregon's? The SEC just has better football teams top to bottom than any other conference in the country, They have some great coaches and nothing is more important to their fan base than college football. Does anybody think LSU, ALABAMA or any of the other SEC teams would have delivered the type of crowd we had last Saturday or two Saturdays before that to watch Fresno State or Presbyterian?

This argument while fun to discuss is a non-starter.

Go Bears beat the Huskies.

Let's get real, South Carolina barely beat Navy at home. No, they woldn't run wild over us, we have a pretty solid front seven. At #10 USCar is one of the most overrated teams teams right now, they are to the NCAA what Washington-St Louis or Emory are to the USN&WR rankings, schools that game the rankings. The SEC does this through weak scheduling.

If you want a reasonable answer to this thread's main question, Sagarin will provide that by mid-october. This is the most objective measure, and in the past the Pac10 has come ahead there.

Quote:

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If you want a reasonable answer to this thread's main question, Sagarin will provide that by mid-october. This is the most objective measure, and in the past the Pac10 has come ahead there.

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Agree completely, and it's why I point out the Sagarin ratings in the other related thread on this. The Pac-12 is having a down year, at least based on how they've played thus far. The SEC, so far this year, has shown itself to be the better conference. Last year, the Pac-10 was the best conference in the country. Looking at objective evidence is good. Exercises in subjectivity, like looking at rankings, arguing hypotheticals (Cal vs SC), and pitting the conferences side by side...meh, not so good. We have real information to judge them by, let's use it.

Holmoephobic;576795 said:

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Yep, our victory cry is, "we almost beat the SEC last year!"
Their victory cry, " Six straight titles from four different teams"
But sure, we're pretty much the SEC... except without the titles

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Great job of missing the obvious.

Oh 6bear6 don't mind holmoephobic he like being a turd, and I must admit, he is very good at being one, too! AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAAAAA

Cal88;576851 said:

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Let's get real, South Carolina barely beat Navy at home. No, they woldn't run wild over us, we have a pretty solid front seven. At #10 USCar is one of the most overrated teams teams right now, they are to the NCAA what Washington-St Louis or Emory are to the USN&WR rankings, schools that game the rankings. The SEC does this through weak scheduling.

If you want a reasonable answer to this thread's main question, Sagarin will provide that by mid-october. This is the most objective measure, and in the past the Pac10 has come ahead there.

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Thank you! What has South Carolina done?

-Beat East Carolina. Whoop-de-doo.
-Beat Georgia by 3 points. Georgia is 1-2 right now and finished 6-7 last year. How good are they? Granted it was a road win.
-Beat Navy by 3 at home.

How good is South Carolina really? We don't know yet. But they are ranked #10 anyway because they play in the Mighty SEC (and, let's face it, no one has played anyone yet).

I maintain that we would beat South Carolina on a neutral field.

Cal88;576851 said:

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Let's get real, South Carolina barely beat Navy at home. No, they woldn't run wild over us, we have a pretty solid front seven. At #10 USCar is one of the most overrated teams teams right now, they are to the NCAA what Washington-St Louis or Emory are to the USN&WR rankings, schools that game the rankings. The SEC does this through weak scheduling.

If you want a reasonable answer to this thread's main question, Sagarin will provide that by mid-october. This is the most objective measure, and in the past the Pac10 has come ahead there.

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sycasey;576887 said:

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Thank you! What has South Carolina done?

-Beat East Carolina. Whoop-de-doo.
-Beat Georgia by 3 points. Georgia is 1-2 right now and finished 6-7 last year. How good are they? Granted it was a road win.
-Beat Navy by 3 at home.

How good is South Carolina really? We don't know yet. But they are ranked #10 anyway because they play in the Mighty SEC (and, let's face it, no one has played anyone yet).

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Exactly....same dumb a$$ reasoning why Georgia was ranked in the top 25 to start the season....WTF???? Spurrier always looks somewhat formidable on paper but then he $hits the bed usually these days.....yes, I do agree that the SEC top 3 or 4 are probably better than anyone else but their rankings, schedules and bowl tie'-ins are much more favorable than ours..plus the one less conference games...it really isn't apples to apples....they also beat up on the Big 10 all the time......hell, so do we usually.....hell, even TCU beats up on the Big 10 now...they seem to make others look great in their bowl games....seeing as Ohio St looked like a high school team against the SEC teams..

we are not beating south carolina...

Agureghian;576905 said:

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we are not beating south carolina...

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I like how other people actually take the time to look at what SC has actually done, as well as a couple of their opponents, and that's all you have to say about it. Really adds to a quality discussion.

Quote:

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yes, I do agree that the SEC top 3 or 4 are probably better than anyone else but their rankings, schedules and bowl tie'-ins are much more favorable than ours

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The SEC games the system. They get the media hype. There's no doubt about it. Patsie OOC schedules, 8 conference games, and inflated preseason rankings all guarantee the teams get more hype than they deserve (and guarantee them a team in the NC game). It's obvious the general masses buy right into it. That said, the objective evidence says they really are good, and this year better than the Pac-12. It is a good conference. It deserves respect. It is also overrated, though, and years like last year the Pac-10 has been the better conference.

BTUR;576911 said:

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I like how other people actually take the time to look at what SC has actually done, as well as a couple of their opponents, and that's all you have to say about it. Really adds to a quality discussion.

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thanks dude.

There is no discussion. Cal cant beat South Carolina. We dont have a established RB, we have a new QB and only a decent receiving core. I dont know much about South carolina's defense but Marcus Lattimore is a potential all american RB same with Alshon Jeffery, their #1 WR.