Rather than approaching this from the angle of number of games played vs power opponents, I instead decided to use Sagarin ratings to compare the strength of OOC opponents to IC ones. Here's a key for the tables linked below:

"SRavg" in is the average annual Sagarin rating for a team or its opponent over the span of their tenure in each conference.

"Opp/Tm" is the ratio of the opponents' average SR to that of the team in question.

"OOC/IC" (in blue) is the ratio of the OOC opponents' average SR to that of the IC opponents average SR. This is the primary metric I use to gauge the relative strength of OOC vs. IC opponents. The list are sorted by OOC/IC in descending order. The higher this ratio is, the stronger a team's OOC opponents are relative to their IC opponents. Scheduling weaker OOC opponents or having stronger IC opponents will decrease the ratio. By this measure, the SEC has the lowest ratio of the power conferences over the span from 1998-2016, while the Big East/AAC (pre-2014) has the highest.

Note that the data is limited to regular season games because schools do not have control over exactly who they face in the postseason.

Power teams by conference

All power teams

Any questions, let me know.

(06-30-2017 12:20 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Rather than approaching this from the angle of number of games played vs power opponents, I instead decided to use Sagarin ratings to compare the strength of OOC opponents to IC ones. Here's a key for the tables linked below:

"SRavg" in is the average annual Sagarin rating for a team or its opponent over the span of their tenure in each conference.

"Opp/Tm" is the ratio of the opponents' average SR to that of the team in question.

"OOC/IC" (in blue) is the ratio of the OOC opponents' average SR to that of the IC opponents average SR. This is the primary metric I use to gauge the relative strength of OOC vs. IC opponents. The list are sorted by OOC/IC in descending order. The higher this ratio is, the stronger a team's OOC opponents are relative to their IC opponents. Scheduling weaker OOC opponents or having stronger IC opponents will decrease the ratio. By this measure, the SEC has the lowest ratio of the power conferences over the span from 1998-2016, while the Big East/AAC (pre-2014) has the highest.

Note that the data is limited to regular season games because schools do not have control over exactly who they face in the postseason.

Power teams by conference

All power teams

Any questions, let me know.

Great work. Thanks.

Cheers,
Neil

(06-30-2017 12:20 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Rather than approaching this from the angle of number of games played vs power opponents, I instead decided to use Sagarin ratings to compare the strength of OOC opponents to IC ones. Here's a key for the tables linked below:

"SRavg" in is the average annual Sagarin rating for a team or its opponent over the span of their tenure in each conference.

"Opp/Tm" is the ratio of the opponents' average SR to that of the team in question.

"OOC/IC" (in blue) is the ratio of the OOC opponents' average SR to that of the IC opponents average SR. This is the primary metric I use to gauge the relative strength of OOC vs. IC opponents. The list are sorted by OOC/IC in descending order. The higher this ratio is, the stronger a team's OOC opponents are relative to their IC opponents. Scheduling weaker OOC opponents or having stronger IC opponents will decrease the ratio. By this measure, the SEC has the lowest ratio of the power conferences over the span from 1998-2016, while the Big East/AAC (pre-2014) has the highest.

Note that the data is limited to regular season games because schools do not have control over exactly who they face in the postseason.

Power teams by conference

All power teams

Any questions, let me know.

First, I applaud you for doing the legwork on this, it's impressive and appreciated.

That said, I do have some concerns:

1) I'm not sure why you are interested in the relative strength of OOC opponents for the conferences as opposed to the absolute strength?

I'm just not sure what the value is in that because, if I understand your ratios correctly (and I may not), it's possible for conference A to actually have played tougher OOC opponents than conference B, but if conference A teams have also played tougher IC games, the relative ratio of A could be lower than that of B, which could be misinterpreted as meaning A has scheduled/played softer OOC than has B, when in fact the opposite is the case.

To me, to get at the core issue here, namely, whether a given conference has played/scheduled "tough" or "soft" OOC opponents, all we need is the Sagarin average of the OOC teams played by each conference during the relevant time frame.

2) I have no issue with focusing strictly on the regular season, as the regular season certainly is an important unit of play. But, I at least partially disagree with your stated rationale for ignoring bowl games. Here's why:

First, just from a "played" perspective, bowl games are a significant chunk of the OOC games that conferences play. So if we are interested in the "toughness" of OOC games played by a conference, we are tossing out a lot of useful data if we ignore them. Furthermore, I bet it's true that bowl games make up an even higher % of a given power conference's games vs other power conferences.

E.g., I bet it's not unusual at all for a given P5 team to have an OOC schedule that includes one game vs a P5, another vs a G5, and another vs an FCS. Then, they play a P5 opponent in a bowl game. So in that case, the bowl game represents 25% of that team's overall OOC schedule (a significant chunk), but fully 50% of their OOC games vs other P5, an even bigger chunk. So if we are interested in how power conferences have fared vs each other, then you lose a lot by not including bowl games.

Second, even from a "scheduled" perspective, bowl games have been, during the BCS era at least, largely scheduled, because of the contracts that have been signed. E.g., with regards to the Outback Bowl, that bowl matches a B1G team and an SEC team, so it is for practical purpose a "scheduled" OOC game for each conference. True, nobody knows for sure which teams will play, but from a conference POV, that doesn't matter, we know it will be SEC vs B1G. So if we are interested in whether a conference has been 'chicken' about scheduling tough OOC games, and that seems to be what this has largely been about, then it makes sense to give both the SEC and B1G credit for scheduling a bowl game vs each other.

I do say "largely" because we do know that sometimes a conference doesn't fill all its bowl slots, and so the game doesn't come off as planned. But again, that doesn't really matter either, because we know what the intent was when the contract was signed, namely to play the game.

So IMO, bowl games are largely scripted these days, down the whole line, and since they do make up a non-trivial % of all OOC games, I think it would be great if you augmented this analysis with one that includes bowl games as well. It would be interesting to see if the ratios you calculated for the conferences change or stay the same.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Again, thanks for doing the work here, well done!

Good points. So now I've included all games, regular season and postseason, and sorted by the average SR of OOC opponents.

Power teams by conference

All power teams

Based on this metric, the Pac-10/12 has had the strongest OOC opponents since 1998, and SEC has had the weakest.

(06-30-2017 03:58 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Good points. So now I've included all games, regular season and postseason, and sorted by the average SR of OOC opponents.

Power teams by conference

All power teams

Based on this metric, the Pac-10/12 has had the strongest OOC opponents since 1998, and SEC has had the weakest.

So I guess this means that the SEC should give back all of those crystal footballs and the recent golden bud vase that we've won (Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, L.S.U. and Alabama) since the BCS and CFP began because we just didn't play stiff enough competition and because we were 8% behind the PAC in Sagarin's (considered biased enough to be tossed by the CFP) strength of competition rating?

The late Vince Lombardi summed this kind of exercise up succinctly, "Statistics are for losers."

And I might add they are only fueled by the need to compensate for defeat.

Competition is popular because it produces victors and vanquished and is a substitute experience in that regard for life. We want applause and recognition when we win, and are too quick to excuse our shortcomings and defeats. That makes us suckers for either side of this argument.

Newspapers pushed stats because fan bases would follow a player even if the team was woeful. Stats are good for attendance, creating opening spreads for gamblers, and for solace. And on the flip side if victory was so important we would remember the scores a year later. Almost everyone I know has to google them unless the moment happened to be iconic (which is rare).

Wins and losses are the only statistic that matters. And the whole process is tainted until the conference champs play it off. But in a generation that grew up with do overs I suppose that is asking too much?

(06-30-2017 03:58 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Based on this metric, the Pac-10/12 has had the strongest OOC opponents since 1998, and SEC has had the weakest.

If I am reading your chart correctly, the SR average difference between the PAC and SEC is 70.43 to 66.64, with the other three power conferences in-between.

Again, excellent work! Thanks for doing this.

(06-30-2017 04:36 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 03:58 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Good points. So now I've included all games, regular season and postseason, and sorted by the average SR of OOC opponents.

Power teams by conference

All power teams

Based on this metric, the Pac-10/12 has had the strongest OOC opponents since 1998, and SEC has had the weakest.

So I guess this means that the SEC should give back all of those crystal footballs and the recent golden bud vase that we've won (Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, L.S.U. and Alabama) since the BCS and CFP began because we just didn't play stiff enough competition and because we were 8% behind the PAC in Sagarin's (considered biased enough to be tossed by the CFP) strength of competition rating?

The late Vince Lombardi summed this kind of exercise up succinctly, "Statistics are for losers."

And I might add they are only fueled by the need to compensate for defeat.

Competition is popular because it produces victors and vanquished and is a substitute experience in that regard for life. We want applause and recognition when we win, and are too quick to excuse our shortcomings and defeats. That makes us suckers for either side of this argument.

Newspapers pushed stats because fan bases would follow a player even if the team was woeful. Stats are good for attendance, creating opening spreads for gamblers, and for solace. And on the flip side if victory was so important we would remember the scores a year later. Almost everyone I know has to google them unless the moment happened to be iconic (which is rare).

Wins and losses are the only statistic that matters. And the whole process is tainted until the conference champs play it off. But in a generation that grew up with do overs I suppose that is asking too much?

I don't think the SEC should necessarily be criticized for having weaker OOC opponents, if that indeed is the case. For one, the SEC also has the highest average Sagarin rating among its members. Therefore, I wouldn't blame them for scheduling weaker OOCs, as they are accused of doing. There's plenty of IC competition as is.

For two, if the SEC is the strongest conference, then it's not at all surprising that their average OOC opponent would have a lower rating, since non-SEC schools are on average weaker by this measure than SEC schools.

For three, as I've mentioned, it's not obvious how much of the low OOC quality is because the SEC schools are intentionally scheduling weaker opponents or because the other schools fear scheduling OOCs against the SEC.

PS: I have no strong preference for Sagarin vs. any other system. I just picked it over something like Sports-Reference's SRS because Sagarin rates the FCS schools that have been among the power FBS schools' opponents.

(06-30-2017 05:02 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 03:58 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Based on this metric, the Pac-10/12 has had the strongest OOC opponents since 1998, and SEC has had the weakest.

If I am reading your chart correctly, the SR average difference between the PAC and SEC is 70.43 to 66.64, with the other three power conferences in-between.

Again, excellent work! Thanks for doing this.

You got it! And no problem. I do this sort of thing as a hobby.

(06-30-2017 04:36 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 03:58 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Good points. So now I've included all games, regular season and postseason, and sorted by the average SR of OOC opponents.

Power teams by conference

All power teams

Based on this metric, the Pac-10/12 has had the strongest OOC opponents since 1998, and SEC has had the weakest.

So I guess this means that the SEC should give back all of those crystal footballs and the recent golden bud vase that we've won (Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, L.S.U. and Alabama) since the BCS and CFP began because we just didn't play stiff enough competition and because we were 8% behind the PAC in Sagarin's (considered biased enough to be tossed by the CFP) strength of competition rating?

I wouldn't draw that conclusion, even facetiously. As important as OOC SOS is, and it is important, when comparing teams from conferences, what matters is overall SOS, the combination of IC and OOC.

For example, if last season Virginia Tech had an OOC SOS ranking of 40, and an overall SOS of 30, while Oklahoma State had an OOC SOS ranking of 20, but an overall SOS of 35, what that would mean is that VT played a tougher schedule than Oklahoma State, not vice-versa.

(06-30-2017 05:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 04:36 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 03:58 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Good points. So now I've included all games, regular season and postseason, and sorted by the average SR of OOC opponents.

Power teams by conference

All power teams

Based on this metric, the Pac-10/12 has had the strongest OOC opponents since 1998, and SEC has had the weakest.

So I guess this means that the SEC should give back all of those crystal footballs and the recent golden bud vase that we've won (Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, L.S.U. and Alabama) since the BCS and CFP began because we just didn't play stiff enough competition and because we were 8% behind the PAC in Sagarin's (considered biased enough to be tossed by the CFP) strength of competition rating?

I wouldn't draw that conclusion, even facetiously. As important as OOC SOS is, and it is important, when comparing teams from conferences, what matters is overall SOS, the combination of IC and OOC.

For example, if last season Virginia Tech had an OOC SOS ranking of 40, and an overall SOS of 30, while Oklahoma State had an OOC SOS ranking of 20, but an overall SOS of 35, what that would mean is that VT played a tougher schedule than Oklahoma State, not vice-versa.

To reinforce that point, if you consider all opponents regardless of conference affliliation, the average SEC school has had the second strongest average opponent by SR since 1998, surpassed only by that of the Pac. That's true if you're considering just the regular season or the regular and postseason combined.

(06-30-2017 05:11 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 05:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 04:36 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 03:58 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Good points. So now I've included all games, regular season and postseason, and sorted by the average SR of OOC opponents.

Power teams by conference

All power teams

Based on this metric, the Pac-10/12 has had the strongest OOC opponents since 1998, and SEC has had the weakest.

So I guess this means that the SEC should give back all of those crystal footballs and the recent golden bud vase that we've won (Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, L.S.U. and Alabama) since the BCS and CFP began because we just didn't play stiff enough competition and because we were 8% behind the PAC in Sagarin's (considered biased enough to be tossed by the CFP) strength of competition rating?

I wouldn't draw that conclusion, even facetiously. As important as OOC SOS is, and it is important, when comparing teams from conferences, what matters is overall SOS, the combination of IC and OOC.

For example, if last season Virginia Tech had an OOC SOS ranking of 40, and an overall SOS of 30, while Oklahoma State had an OOC SOS ranking of 20, but an overall SOS of 35, what that would mean is that VT played a tougher schedule than Oklahoma State, not vice-versa.

To reinforce that point, if you consider all opponents regardless of conference affliliation, the average SEC school has had the second strongest average opponent by SR since 1998, surpassed only by that of the Pac. That's true if you're considering just the regular season or the regular and postseason combined.

Since JRSec mentioned returning trophies, here are the Sagarin SOS ratings of recent national champs, including the SEC's unprecedented run of titles that begain with Florida in 2006:

2016 Clemson ...... 3
2015 Alabama ...... 1
2014 Ohio State .... 29
2013 FSU ............. 62
2012 Alabama ....... 19
2011 Alabama ....... 15
2010 Auburn ......... 13
2009 Alabama ....... 2
2008 Florida .......... 4
2007 LSU .............. 11
2006 Florida ........... 8

What we see is that of the 7 straight national titles won by the SEC from 2006-2012, all of them had more than respectable SOSs. Three of the seven had top-10 SOSs, and the very worst was #19, still well above average even among power teams. And then the 8th title was won by Alabama in 2015, and that year they had the #1 overall schedule.

Really, the only national champ that stands out as having played a weak schedule was FSU in 2013. The ACC was soft that year (lowest conference Sagarin rating among the P5), and their four OOC games were against Nevada, Bethune-Cookman (FCS), Idaho, and a 4-8 Florida team.

We saw evidence of that softness in the national title game: FSU had absolutely crushed everyone on their schedule, their lowest MOV all season was 14 points and every other game they won by more than 20, but against an Auburn team that was arguably more lucky than good, needing bona-fide miracles to beat both Tennessee and Alabama, but had played a tough schedule, they struggled mightily, trailing almost the entire game before eeking it out Patriots-style in the closing seconds. They looked like sure losers for the great majority of that game.

(06-30-2017 07:29 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 05:11 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 05:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 04:36 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 03:58 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  Good points. So now I've included all games, regular season and postseason, and sorted by the average SR of OOC opponents.

Power teams by conference

All power teams

Based on this metric, the Pac-10/12 has had the strongest OOC opponents since 1998, and SEC has had the weakest.

So I guess this means that the SEC should give back all of those crystal footballs and the recent golden bud vase that we've won (Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, L.S.U. and Alabama) since the BCS and CFP began because we just didn't play stiff enough competition and because we were 8% behind the PAC in Sagarin's (considered biased enough to be tossed by the CFP) strength of competition rating?

I wouldn't draw that conclusion, even facetiously. As important as OOC SOS is, and it is important, when comparing teams from conferences, what matters is overall SOS, the combination of IC and OOC.

For example, if last season Virginia Tech had an OOC SOS ranking of 40, and an overall SOS of 30, while Oklahoma State had an OOC SOS ranking of 20, but an overall SOS of 35, what that would mean is that VT played a tougher schedule than Oklahoma State, not vice-versa.

To reinforce that point, if you consider all opponents regardless of conference affliliation, the average SEC school has had the second strongest average opponent by SR since 1998, surpassed only by that of the Pac. That's true if you're considering just the regular season or the regular and postseason combined.

Since JRSec mentioned returning trophies, here are the Sagarin SOS ratings of recent national champs, including the SEC's unprecedented run of titles that begain with Florida in 2006:

2016 Clemson ...... 3
2015 Alabama ...... 1
2014 Ohio State .... 29
2013 FSU ............. 62
2012 Alabama ....... 19
2011 Alabama ....... 15
2010 Auburn ......... 13
2009 Alabama ....... 2
2008 Florida .......... 4
2007 LSU .............. 11
2006 Florida ........... 8

What we see is that of the 7 straight national titles won by the SEC from 2006-2012, all of them had more than respectable SOSs. Three of the seven had top-10 SOSs, and the very worst was #19, still well above average even among power teams. And then the 8th title was won by Alabama in 2015, and that year they had the #1 overall schedule.

Really, the only national champ that stands out as having played a weak schedule was FSU in 2013. The ACC was soft that year (lowest conference Sagarin rating among the P5), and their four OOC games were against Nevada, Bethune-Cookman (FCS), Idaho, and a 4-8 Florida team.

We saw evidence of that softness in the national title game: FSU had absolutely crushed everyone on their schedule that year, their lowest MOV all seasons was 14 points and every other game they won by more than 20, but against an Auburn team that was arguably more lucky than good, needing bona-fide miracles to beat both Tennessee and Alabama, but had played a tough schedule, they struggled mightily, trailing almost the entire game before eeking it out Patriots-style in the closing seconds. They looked like sure losers for the great majority of that game.

Auburn's miraculous wins that year were against Georgia and Alabama, not Tennessee.

(06-30-2017 08:44 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 07:29 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 05:11 PM)Nerdlinger Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 05:05 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-30-2017 04:36 PM)JRsec Wrote:  So I guess this means that the SEC should give back all of those crystal footballs and the recent golden bud vase that we've won (Florida, Tennessee, Auburn, L.S.U. and Alabama) since the BCS and CFP began because we just didn't play stiff enough competition and because we were 8% behind the PAC in Sagarin's (considered biased enough to be tossed by the CFP) strength of competition rating?

I wouldn't draw that conclusion, even facetiously. As important as OOC SOS is, and it is important, when comparing teams from conferences, what matters is overall SOS, the combination of IC and OOC.

For example, if last season Virginia Tech had an OOC SOS ranking of 40, and an overall SOS of 30, while Oklahoma State had an OOC SOS ranking of 20, but an overall SOS of 35, what that would mean is that VT played a tougher schedule than Oklahoma State, not vice-versa.

To reinforce that point, if you consider all opponents regardless of conference affliliation, the average SEC school has had the second strongest average opponent by SR since 1998, surpassed only by that of the Pac. That's true if you're considering just the regular season or the regular and postseason combined.

Since JRSec mentioned returning trophies, here are the Sagarin SOS ratings of recent national champs, including the SEC's unprecedented run of titles that begain with Florida in 2006:

2016 Clemson ...... 3
2015 Alabama ...... 1
2014 Ohio State .... 29
2013 FSU ............. 62
2012 Alabama ....... 19
2011 Alabama ....... 15
2010 Auburn ......... 13
2009 Alabama ....... 2
2008 Florida .......... 4
2007 LSU .............. 11
2006 Florida ........... 8

What we see is that of the 7 straight national titles won by the SEC from 2006-2012, all of them had more than respectable SOSs. Three of the seven had top-10 SOSs, and the very worst was #19, still well above average even among power teams. And then the 8th title was won by Alabama in 2015, and that year they had the #1 overall schedule.

Really, the only national champ that stands out as having played a weak schedule was FSU in 2013. The ACC was soft that year (lowest conference Sagarin rating among the P5), and their four OOC games were against Nevada, Bethune-Cookman (FCS), Idaho, and a 4-8 Florida team.

We saw evidence of that softness in the national title game: FSU had absolutely crushed everyone on their schedule that year, their lowest MOV all seasons was 14 points and every other game they won by more than 20, but against an Auburn team that was arguably more lucky than good, needing bona-fide miracles to beat both Tennessee and Alabama, but had played a tough schedule, they struggled mightily, trailing almost the entire game before eeking it out Patriots-style in the closing seconds. They looked like sure losers for the great majority of that game.

Auburn's miraculous wins that year were against Georgia and Alabama, not Tennessee.

Yeah, if it weren't for Auburn miraculous win over Alabama it likely would have been another title year for Bama.