Conference Rankings – Week 7

We are now at the halfway point of the season for many teams with this week marking the official halfway point of the regular season. Now is a good time to start conference rankings as we have an idea what most teams are and what non-conference victories have lots of value what games have little. And since I like countdowns, here come the rankings in reverse order.

11 Sun Belt – This league had made strides over the last few seasons, but all of that progress has come to a halt. Middle Tennessee has fallen back to the pack after a few strong seasons and rebuilding Troy remains well ahead of everyone else in this league. Nobody else has done any damage in non-conference play. The biggest upsets are over Conference USA fodder this season. Ouch.
Conference Rankings: 1 Troy, 2 Middle Tennessee, 3UL Lafayette, 4 Florida International, 5 Arkansas St., 6 North Texas, 7 Florida Atlantic, 8UL Monroe, 9 Western Kentucky

10 MAC – This league hasn't recovered from the downturns of Bowling Green and Toledo after some big years early last decade. Central Michigan is rebuilding, there are a few good teams and then there is dreck to a level this league didn't have a few years ago. I can't decide if Eastern Michigan or Akron is worse and both are in the conversation for worst team in America. At least Temple didn't lose to FCS Villanova before challenging for the conference title like last season.
Conference Rankings: 1 Northern Illinois, 2 Temple, 3 Toledo, 4 Ohio, 5 Miami (OH), 6 Central Michigan, 7 Western Michigan, 8 Buffalo, 9 Bowling Green, 10 Kent St., 11 Ball St., 12 Akron, 13 Eastern Michigan

9 Conference USA – This league also used to be better but it has never really recovered from losing most of its best teams in the realignment of 2005. Would probably rank higher as a league if anybody played any defense whatsoever. Alas, only Central Florida does and they might as well not play offense. There are very few wins of note on the non-conference resume.
Conference Rankings: 1 East Carolina, 2 Central Florida, 3 SMU, 4 Southern Miss, 5 Houston, 6 UTEP, 7 Tulsa, 8 Tulane, 9Marshall, 10 UAB, 11 Rice, 12 Memphis

8 Big East – I never thought I would see a worse performance out of a BCS league than the 1999 Pac-10 but I finally have (and if you don't believe me about that league go look it up, it was putrid). The Big East this season is just awful. West Virginia is the runaway favorite as we head into league play basically because they have no bad losses and weren't blown out in the quality defeat. Even the Mountaineers haven't looked that good with the overtime win over Marshall on the resume. Rutgers has been a major disappointment, even at the standards of this league struggling with Morgan St. and Florida International and losing to Tulane at home.
Conference Rankings: 1 West Virginia, 2 Syracuse, 3 South Florida, 4Cincinnati, 5 Louisville, 6 Pittsburgh, 7 Rutgers, 8 Connecticut

7 Mountain West – This league is normally at the top of the non-BCS leagues and in number of top shelf teams, the MWC is still better than the WAC. That said, the WAC has a heck of a lot more depth this season. Middle tier Mountain West teams BYU, San Diego St. and Wyoming would most certainly struggle against middle tier WAC teams Fresno St., Idaho and Utah St. as the Utah St./BYU game proved.
Conference Rankings: 1 Utah, 2 TCU, 3 Air Force, 4 BYU, 5 San Diego St., 6 Wyoming, 7 UNLV, 8 Colorado St., 9 New Mexico

6 WAC – The WAC is showing strength much deeper in the league than this incarnation of the league ever has. It might even keep Boise St.'s strength of schedule numbers decent at least in the minds of the computers. Nevada is well-documented carrying the first national ranking in nearly 70 years. Hawaii is better than expected at 4-2 and will likely win eight games considering the difficult trips to the islands many teams must make. Idaho is 3-2 and looks like a likely bowl team for the second straight year for the first time in program history. Fresno St. is its usual 7-9 win self and even Utah St. has looked decent even though they carry an 0-2 league record.
Conference Rankings: 1 Boise St., 2 Nevada, 3 Hawaii, 4 Fresno St., 5 Idaho, 6 Louisiana Tech, 7 Utah St., 8 New Mexico St., 9 San Jose St.

5 ACC – The ACC sits in its own little window. It is better top to bottom than any team below it, but it is also nowhere near any of the four leagues above it because of the awful start (September 11 was a worse day for this league than any single day the Big East has had). At this point, there are 10 possible bowl teams though only eight will likely reach the six wins needed.
Conference Rankings: 1 Virginia Tech, 2 Florida St., 3 NC State, 4 Maryland, 5 Georgia Tech, 6 Miami, 7 North Carolina, 8 Clemson, 9 Wake Forest, 10 Boston College, 11 Virginia, 12 Duke

4 Big 12 – This league is clearly defined in three tiers right now. There are the four undefeateds, the doughy middle that could be good or might be bad and a Kansas in its own class at the bottom. This league could rise greatly if Oklahoma St. and Missouri turn out to really be good but neither has played a very taxing schedule. If both are in fact 10 win level teams, this league is pushing for the number two spot.
Conference Rankings: 1 Nebraska, 2 Oklahoma, 3 Missouri, 4 Oklahoma St., 5 Kansas St., 6 Texas, 7 Iowa St., 8 Texas Tech, 9 Baylor, 10 Texas A&M, 11 Colorado, 12 Kansas

3 Big Ten – This league is strong at the top and could make a case for the top spot even. I just don't believe some of the teams are as good as the records say they are (Michigan and Northwestern at 5-1, I'm looking at you). Also, Penn St.'s rapid decline from the last few seasons hurts quite a bit.
Conference Rankings: 1 Ohio St., 2 Iowa, 3 Michigan St., 4 Wisconsin, 5 Illinois, 6 Michigan, 7 Purdue, 8 Northwestern, 9 Penn St., 10 Indiana, 11 Minnesota

2 SEC – Has the best collection of top teams, but the bottom end of this league is as bad as it has been in quite some time (with the exception of Vanderbilt who is much better than last season). The top six teams haven't lost to anyone outside of themselves and only Georgia and Mississippi St. seem even capable of playing the type of game needed to get it done after Kentucky's upset bid against Auburn fell short last week.
Conference Rankings: 1 LSU, 2 Auburn, 3 South Carolina, 4 Alabama, 5 Arkansas, 6 Florida, 7 Mississippi St., 8 Georgia, 9 Vanderbilt, 10 Ole Miss, 11 Kentucky, 12 Tennessee

1 Pac-10 – Has some of the same issues as the SEC, but other than Washington St., its bottom dwellers are better this year. At the top, the two Oregon schools, Stanford and Arizona are all very good and would compete for the league title in any league in college football (SEC included). The rest (other than Washington St.) obviously have some talent and could beat the bottoms of any other league fairly handily.
Conference Rankings: 1 Oregon, 2 Oregon St., 3 Stanford, 4 Arizona, 5 Cal, 6 Arizona St., 7 Washington, 8 USC, 9 UCLA, 10 Washington St.

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