Breaking SEC News

I’ve got some big news about the SEC and ACC posted over at Team Speed Kills. This is big stuff folks; you’re not going to want to miss it.

A Note on Dabo Swinney

As long as I am going to take Tennessee to task for its questionable hire, I might as well add Clemson in too.

Dabo Swinney is going to take over as the full-time head coach. His principle qualifications appeared to be that he is young, he is energetic, he knows Clemson, and most importantly he is not Tommy Bowden. It also doesn’t hurt that keeping Dabo means C.J. Spiller is sticking around for another season. Probably.

According to the linked article, his primary accomplishment was firing OC Rob Spence and deciding to give the ball to James Davis and Spiller more. Not to heap on the snark, but everyone who looked at Clemson’s situation could see that having a banged up Cullen Harper sling it around the field was a bad idea and that giving the ball to the two most talented players on the offense was the right thing to do.

So as we near the Dabo era, I think it’s worth digging up a table I made back before the season when I was doing coaching record analysis. I have updated it to add 2008.

Clemson Season Splits

Year	First Half	Second Half	Beat SC?	Overall
1999	3-3	3-3	Y	6-6
2000	6-0	3-3	Y	9-3
2001	4-2	3-3	N	7-5
2002	3-3	4-3	Y	7-6
2003	4-2	4-2	Y	8-4
2004	2-4	4-1	Y	6-5
2005	3-3	5-1	Y	8-4
2006	5-1	3-4	N	8-5
2007	4-2	5-2	Y	9-4
2008	3-3	4-2	Y	7-5

If I scrambled up the years and didn’t label them, you would not be able to pick 2008 out from the bunch. OK maybe you could have found the one of the two years with only 12 total games and seven wins, but you get the point. Nothing particularly stands out about 2008 relative to the rest of the Bowden Era.

This is Dabo’s task: make a row in the table that doesn’t blend in with the others. I don’t know if a guy who was out of coaching as recently as 2002 is the right one for one of the four ACC schools that truly cares about football in the way that Big 12 and SEC schools do.

We’ll see, but I have a feeling the next three seasons in the upstate of South Carolina will probably not stand out from anything else you see here.

Corso Picks USC, More

Here it is:

The kiss of death, supposedly

I don’t think Lee Corso picking you is quite the harbinger of doom (the Curso?) it once was, but here you go. Lee once again goes with America’s vote (something he finally picked against, once) and takes the Trojans over the Buckeyes.

I’ve mostly been monitoring UAB-Tennessee and Nevada-Missouri. At the present, Tennessee has been decided lackluster. They have just 21-3 late in the third quarter, and that includes Eric Berry bailing out the defense by intercepting a pass in the end zone.

Nevada-Mizzou has been the most exciting thanks to a lot of offensive fireworks. The Wolfpack defense has been predictably hopeless, but their Pistol offense has worked fairly well. In the Pistol, the quarterback lines up in a short shotgun (because a pistol is shorter than a shotgun) which gives him the chance to survey the defense while still lining up the running back behind the quarterback like in a traditional offense.

Some other schools have been mixing in some Pistol. Florida used it against Miami, and Ohio State has already used it with Terrelle Pryor.

With USF beating Kansas and Maryland beating up on Cal right now, this could end up being redemption weekend for the much maligned conferences. Wisconsin winning at Fresno will help with the Big Ten’s case, but of course nothing would do more than Ohio State beating USC.

For the record, I’m thinking both Michigan (over Notre Dame) and Ohio State will win thanks much more to their defenses than their offenses. I learned nothing from USC’s blowout of Virginia (who is really, really bad), and I’m still concerned about their offensive line. We shall see.

Mid-Afternoon Check-In

Well, Auburn and Southern Miss were underwhelming, and the BC-GT game was nothing if not sloppy and disjointed. If I could describe Auburn QB Chris Todd in one word, it would be “indecisive.” Meanwhile, Josh Nesbitt and Jonathan Dwyer together are probably good enough to get the Jackets four more wins in the putrid ACC.

Speaking of the ACC, Wake Forest doesn’t look too bad against Ole Miss. Ole Miss doesn’t look too bad against Wake Forest. This is a game between two good but not great BCS conference team. Only problem is, Wake is supposed to be one of the two or three best teams in their league. Whoops.

Georgia has been looking good, but Central Michigan’s defense is a sieve. I mean, they gave up 70 points to Clemson last season, and that betrays some deep issues that cannot be fixed in one year. CMU’s offense could have been better, except Dan LeFevour didn’t start running until about five minutes to go in the half. Not surprisingly, that allowed the Chips to move the ball better and even pick up a cheap TD right at the end.

By the way, Notre Dame is tied at the half 7-7 with San Diego State, and needed a blocked punt with under two minutes to go in the half to get a chance at that TD. Yes, that San Diego State, who lost to Cal-Poly last weekend. It is a little surprising, but then again not so much since it’s the Irish’s first game and they were not competitive in so many games last season. I think a lot of people overestimated where they were starting from this season.

Oh, and Jimmy Clausen looks like a dope with his new long hair.

Setting the Stage: Week 2

I have to admit, I’m a bit jealous of my brother who got to be at GameDay this morning. It’s a lot of fun to be there and I encourage you to go if you can if they visit your school.

Anyway, I am starting off the day with the Raycom double dip, with BC-GT on the ACC side and Auburn and Southern Miss on the SEC side. I want to see Paul Johnson’s offense go against a great run defense. I also want to see not just Auburn’s new offense, but also what Larry Fedora can do against Auburn’s great D.

I wish Cincinnati-Oklahoma was on in this area, but we get Ole Miss-Wake Forest instead. Makes sense, considering Winston-Salem is less than two hours up the road on I-77 from Charlotte. If the Demon Deacons win, they could be set up to be this year’s Kansas: a team with a gaudy won-loss record without playing much of anyone.

As long as we’re drawing parallels to last season, which is always a dicey proposition, Vandy has a chance to be this year’s Mississippi State. We’re a long way away from that for now though.

Stay safe, and enjoy this game day.

South Carolina-NC State

First Half

This game is rivaling the ’05 FSU-Miami game for worst opening weekend game I’ve ever watched, and that’s saying something. I mean, Wake Forest-Baylor has had a lot better offensive play in it.

Ol’ Steve has a lot of work to do because he still doesn’t have a quarterback. It could be Stephen Garcia or bust. This has just been an awful game.

Second Half

I only saw the beginning of it, but it appears that things turned around. It was only a matter of time before Spurrier pulled Beecher, what with his four turnovers, and it certainly seems that Chris Smelley has won the starting role on the field. It’ll be interesting to see what Stevarino has to say on his coach show this week.

Addendum

Jessie Palmer, find a longer tie. You look ridiculous.

College GameDay’s Picks

In case you missed the College GameDay season preview show yesterday, here’s how everyone picked. They added Lou Holtz for the preview show, but hopefully he won’t be a part of the main lineup. The three-man crew works best. As always, Chris Fowler did not make any predictions.

Lee Corso

ACC: Clemson

Big 12: Missouri

Big East: South Florida

Big Ten: Ohio State

Pac-10: USC

SEC: Auburn

National Title: USC over Missouri

Kirk Herbstreit

ACC: Clemson

Big 12: Oklahoma

Big East: South Florida

Big Ten: Ohio State

Pac-10: USC

SEC: Florida

National Title: Florida over USC

Lou Holtz

ACC: Wake Forest

Big 12: Oklahoma

Big East: Pitt

Big Ten: Ohio State

Pac-10: USC

SEC: Florida

National Title: Ohio State over Oklahoma

The funniest part of the whole thing was during the picks segment. Corso called Missouri WR Jeremy Maclin “Jeremy McLean” and Kirk nearly lost it. Fowler also messed up an into segment off a commercial break, so even the best of them need some fall practice before the season.

All 2008 Picks In One Place

I don’t think I’m going to have time to write up the rest of my picks in as much detail as I did with the ACC and Big 12. Instead, I am just going to reveal them all now. I will also be showing you how my selections fit with the expected outcomes based on ten years of BCS games and my opinion of the upcoming season.

Before we dig into the picks, I have some numbers to share with you. Numbers aren’t as juicy as picks are, of course, but they form the basis of these predictions.

The first bit is about BCS at-large teams. Since 1998, the BCS has had 24 at-large teams. I’m fudging a bit; the BCS Busters (Utah, Boise State, and Hawaii) had auto-bids, as did Nebraska and Oklahoma when they made the championship game without winning the Big 12. Just humor me for now.

Of those 24 at-larges, 20 have had the opportunity to return to the BCS the next season. Six of them were able to do it; fourteen were not. Since only 30% of BCS at-larges return the next season and we had four at-larges in 2007, we should expect that only one of them comes back this season.

The other important set of stats comes from my analysis of the preseason consensus. Based on that, we would expect there to be four BCS teams that were picked to be first in their division/conference, two that were picked second, one that was picked third, and one from all the rest.

That only adds up to eight teams though, and there are ten BCS spots. I have already said that I think this is a “season of titans” as it were, so to fill in those final two spots I am using two more teams that were picked to finish in first place. That makes a total of six teams picked first in their division/conference in the BCS. Also to fit in with that theory, I expect there to be no BCS Busters in 2008.

The preseason consensus, which appears to be about final at this point, can be found here.

One final point to keep in mind is that only one team–the 2003 Oklahoma Sooners who got a championship game automatic bid–has lost its conference championship game and still made the BCS.

Onto the picks!

ACC

Championship Game: Clemson over Virginia Tech

At-Large: None

BIG 12

Championship Game: Oklahoma over Missouri

At-Large: Texas Tech

BIG EAST

Champion: West Virginia (over second-place Cincinnati, third-place USF)

At-Large: None

I see West Virginia this year in a similar situation as Miami in 2002-03. This is perhaps the last big hurrah for a while since it will be extremely tough to replace Pat White. White will make up for other shortcomings on offense, and DC Jeff Casteel returns from last year’s staff to field a defense that is always better than people think it is.

I really like Cincinnati’s chances to finish second. The Bearcats won ten games last season, and two of their three losses were by one score or less. Replacing Ben Mauk will be difficult, but Brian Kelly is a good coach and a good quarterback developer. The defense will carry them to second place.

USF has talent in key areas, but I just don’t think Matt Grothe is consistent enough to carry them to second place in the conference. There’s just something about him I don’t trust.

BIG TEN

Champion: Ohio State

At-Large: Michigan State

Ohio State should be the best team in the country. It has 19 starters coming back from a team that went to the national title game. The Buckeyes have considerably more talent and depth than anyone else in the conference.

Picking Michigan State is rather curious. If you remember though, I have to have someone who was picked beyond the top three of its conference. The Spartans are that team, having been picked sixth in the Big Ten.

All six of MSU’s losses were close last season, making them a prominent member of the potential risers club. They have a great senior tailback in Javon Ringer, and if there’s a conference where you can ride a senior tailback to success, it’s this one. The offensive line is big, QB Brian Hoyer is a veteran, and Mark Dantonio’s coaching will keep the defense solid.

Illinois will fall back to earth without Rashard Mendenhall, I have little faith that Jay Paterno’s “Spread HD” will amount to much, and Bret Bielema’s teams have played to the level of their opponents so much it scares me. The Rose Bowl will need someone to replace the Buckeyes, and I think the Spartans just might be the in best position to get the bid.

Plus, the Big Ten has put more teams predicted to finish below third in the conference into the BCS than any other league. It would stand to reason that the Big Ten would be the most likely conference to produce that surprise team this year.

PAC-10

Champion: USC

At-Large: Arizona State

USC looks more vulnerable to me this season than it has in years. The defense will still be great, believe you me. The offense just won’t be overwhelming as it was in the 2003-05 run, and that is what made those Trojan teams nearly invincible.

Mark Sanchez may be good, but he is no Carson Palmer or Matt Leinart. Just being John David Booty will be enough to win the conference, and I think he can be that. USC gets the benefit of the doubt until it falls.

Arizona State was a year early by winning ten games a season ago. Serious questions persist about the offensive line, and the schedule is tougher with Georgia coming to town. However, Dennis Erickson is still the second-best coach in the conference, and there’s enough continuity to think that the Sun Devils will enjoy another great season.

SEC

Championship Game: Florida over Auburn

At-Large: Georgia

Florida and Auburn were almost mirror images of each other last year. If Florida could only have had a defense to go with its offense, the Gators could have been contenders. If Auburn could only have had an offense to go with its defense, the Tigers could have been contenders.

The offseason of training should make Florida’s defense much improved, and Auburn’s offense showed a lot of promise in its bowl game under new OC Tony Franklin. LSU has so much talent everywhere that they cannot be dismissed, but I don’t think Andrew Hatch is as good as Matt Flynn was. That assumption is the main deciding factor for picking the Tigers from the Plains over the Tigers from the Bayou.

Georgia returns most everyone important from last season. I have some concerns about the team though. Can Mark Richt really keep up the special motivational tactics all season long? If he doesn’t, can the team find the fire inside? The ’Dawgs certainly couldn’t at the beginning of last season.

Will Matthew Stafford really make the leap everyone is expecting? Can another patchwork offensive line come together to have great results? Most of these questions are probably “yes” answers, but I still have UGA finishing second in the SEC East because I think Florida will beat them. I will get into that more around the time of the game, but for now just know I am assuming a Gator win on November 1.

BCS BOWL APPEARANCES

I will use the BCS selection process that I outlined recently to explain why I have everyone going to the bowls they’re listed in.

BCS National Championship Game: Ohio State over Oklahoma

These are the two teams I think have the best shot at going undefeated. Ohio State has the better team, something it didn’t have in 2007, and it will have the motivation of needing to prove the world wrong, something it didn’t have in 2006.

Oklahoma sleepwalked through its two recent BCS games, but it won’t this time. The Sooners don’t have quite the same depth that OSU has though, and the waves of fresh Buckeye players will help decide the game.

For the first time since 2005, we should have a close, entertaining national title game.

Rose Bowl: USC over Michigan State

USC comes in as the tie-in Pac-10 champion. To replace the No. 1 Buckeyes, the Rose Bowl will select Michigan State (ranked between 12 and 14 in the BCS) and get its traditional matchup. The result will be similar to last year’s game as the nation once again howls for the Rose to forget its historical matchup and set up a good game.

Fiesta Bowl: Texas Tech over Arizona State

To replace the No. 2 Sooners, the Fiesta Bowl will take the hometown Sun Devils. It was not able to take them last season because of the Orange taking Kansas; that left the Fiesta with the choice of auto-bid West Virginia or auto-bid Hawai’i.

The Fiesta gets the next choice as well, being first in the rotation this season, so it will take the nearby Red Raiders for the excitement factor. It also will not want a rematch, which is the result of taking Georgia, and it will not want to take West Virginia two years in a row.

The game will be a shootout, and I will take Tech since Mike Leach always seems to do well in bowl games.

Sugar Bowl: Florida over West Virginia

Florida comes as the tie-in SEC champion. The Sugar will take West Virginia so as not to set up a rematch of the Florida-Georgia game.

This should be an exciting game as the poster boys of the spread option, Pat White and Tim Tebow, battle it out in the Superdome. Both offenses will give the defenses fits, but Florida’s stable of playmakers is so much deeper than West Virginia’s is that I have no choice but to take the Gators.

This would be a really, really fun game though.

Orange Bowl: Georgia over Clemson

Clemson comes as the tie-in ACC champion. The Orange Bowl cannot believe its luck that it gets to take Georgia as its at-large team. Both teams are regional powers that will snap up tickets as fast as the bowl can print them.

This is also a historic rivalry game for the schools, though one that hasn’t been played regularly in a while. For that reason, it will be a very hard-fought game with a lot on the line for the fans. Georgia simply has the better team though, so I expect the ’Dawgs to take it in the second half.

In Summary

I have six teams that were picked as first place finishers in the preseason consensus: Clemson, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Ohio State, USC, and Georgia. I have two teams that were picked as second place finishers in the preseason consensus: Florida and Arizona State. I have one team that was picked as a third place finisher in the preseason consensus, Texas Tech, and one from below that, Michigan State. Georgia is the one returning at-large from last season.

All of the BCS games look good except for the Rose Bowl. Most even have an enticing storyline to go along with a good matchup. I feel really bad for leaving Missouri out, but I can’t ignore the history on teams that have lost their conference title games. Subbing the Tigers in for the Red Raiders is still plausible and could also make for a great game.

For what it’s worth, I also expect Ohio State’s Chris Wells to win the Heisman, followed by Chase Daniel, Tim Tebow, and Pat White.

That is over 1,900 words of predicting up there. That’s way more than enough. It’s about time that we actually had some games in what looks to be another outstanding college football season.

Can Paul Johnson Succeed at Georgia Tech?

When I wrote out my ACC picks for this year, I noticed there was a high level of interest in Paul Johnson, the new Georgia Tech head coach. The question of whether his offense will work in the ACC has been a topic of discussion this offseason since it’s been a few years since we saw someone run the option exclusively in a BCS conference school.

The simple answer is: of course you can run an option offense in a BCS conference. I know it’s easy to forget after watching the Callahan experiment, but Nebraska won three national titles running the option out of the I formation in the 1990s. The 1995 Nebraska team is even considered to be one of the best ever. That wasn’t that long ago.

At this point, only smaller schools run exclusively option-based offenses. They don’t require the precision of passing offenses, and that helps when you don’t have top-flight quarterbacks and receivers coming in. However if you get top flight runners at quarterback and running back like the Huskers did, it can be very powerful.

There of course are differences between Tom Osborne’s option-I offense and Paul Johnson’s triple option from the flexbone. The basic concept though is basically the same: make the defense have to make one-on-one tackles.

That’s also the point of many of the spread offenses that are all the rage right now, and the spread option varieties often incorporate triple option from the flexbone in the base offense. If you have guys who can make people miss, it’s a tremendous advantage to force the one-on-one tackling scenarios. We’ve seen the power of that in recent years with players like Pat White and Percy Harvin.

The question right now is about Johnson’s offense specifically and not the option in general. It’s tricky to project what happened at Navy to a BCS conference because Navy doesn’t get BCS-level players. What we can do is take a look at how Johnson’s Midshipmen teams did against BCS conference teams and see how it compares to the averages those opponents allowed during the seasons in which they played.

The Numbers

In Johnson’s six seasons in Annapolis, he played 30 games against BCS opponents. They were about evenly split between teams that finished the seasons in which they played below .500 and at .500 or above. Just to be clear, “BCS opponents” refers to teams in a BCS conference at the time they played and Notre Dame.

Overall, his teams averaged 27.93 points and 400.33 yards of total offense against BCS opponents. Those opponents on average allowed 26.6 points per game and 371.5 yards per game. That suggests that Johnson’s offense was effective because despite being a mid-major, he averaged a point a game more and 29 yards more per game than the average opponent for those teams.

His squads scored more than the opponents gave up on average in 17 of the 30 games. They also gained more yards than the opponents gave up on average in 16 of the 30 games. Slightly more than half the time, they outperformed expectations.

Now, let’s look at the splits between home and away:

Paul Johnson at Navy

Site	Wins	Losses	Totals
Home	4	10	14
Away	7	7	14
Bowls	0	2	2
Totals	11	19	30

This is not what one would expect, but remember that the rules are different when talking about a mid-major playing BCS opponents. The slate of teams that Navy played at home was more difficult, which gets magnified due to the divide in talent.

Now let’s take a look at the record by tier of opponent. As always, first-tier opponents are teams that had a winning percentage of .750 or better, second tier were .500 to .749, third tier opponents were .250 to .499, and fourth tier opponents were .249 and below.

Paul Johnson at Navy

Tier	Wins	Losses	Pct.
First	0	6	.000
Second	0	7	.000
Third	4	5	.444
Fourth	7	1	.875

As we can see, none of his Navy teams beat a BCS opponent that finished the year at .500 or above. He was about 50-50 against the third tier, and nearly flawless against the bottom tier. The one loss to a fourth tier team was in his first year when his 2-10 Navy team lost to 2-10 Duke.

If you project the overall numbers into an eight-game conference schedule, that comes out to two or three conference wins a year. If you then win three or four non-conference games, that’s a five to seven win season and a bowl more often than not. Keep in mind that we’re talking about doing this with Navy’s players.

Here’s what his offense did against those tiers:

Paul Johnson at Navy

Tier	Scored	Expected	Yards	Expected
First	16.83	18.83	289.33	316.67
Second	20.00	24.71	350.71	370.00
Third	37.56	29.22	478.44	383.78
Fourth	32.38	31.13	439.13	400.13

It is somewhat odd that he did slightly better against the first tier than the second. Part of that discrepancy is skewed somewhat by a 14-point, 367-yard flop in Johnson’s first bowl game against second tier Texas Tech (who gave up 34 points and 453 yards a game) in 2003.

We also see that he did better against the third tier than the fourth. Part of that discrepancy is skewed somewhat by a couple of overtime games against third tier teams and a 605-yard explosion against third tier UConn (who gave up 358 yards a game) in 2006.

I don’t know enough about Navy to give you a complete answer on why it happened, so it’s just noted for being interested. Overall, his teams missed the averages given up by opponents that finished above .500 by 2.5 points and 23 yards a game. That shows that at least offensively, his Navy teams were competitive.

What about the other side of the ball?

You’ll notice that this discussion has entirely been about Paul Johnson’s offense. The question of whether it will work in a BCS conference was the issue on everyone’s minds. It’s worth it to mention defense though if we’re going to assess his overall prospects at Georgia Tech.

The defenses on Johnson’s teams were very inconsistent. That is not surprising since he can only get players who are able to get into the Naval Academy academically and are willing to join the Navy immediately after school. Add to that the fact that defense doesn’t have a scheme that equalizes things to the same degree that the option does for offense, and the lack of constancy is understandable.

They finished anywhere from the 20s to the triple digits in scoring defense during his time there. Despite the uncertainty he tied the school record for wins with ten in 2004, and in ’04 and ’05 he delivered the fifth and sixth bowl wins in school history.

To be honest I don’t know a thing about his new defensive coordinator at Georgia Tech, Dave Wommack. As we can see from his bio though, he has not held a I-A defensive coordinator job for more than three years in a row in his 28 years of experience. Each time he left such a position he dropped back to being a position coach.

It’s possible that he’s now ready to be a top flight DC, but I don’t know how likely it is to suddenly happen after 28 years of coaching. It may just be that he wasn’t in the right situation in the past and now he’s where he needs to be. The pressure will be on him to get good results if Johnson’s offense really takes off.

Since the ACC is the most offensively anemic conference among the BCS leagues, it may not matter if Wommack doesn’t turn out to be as good as the exiting DC, John Tenuta. Georgia Tech is in a talent rich state and right next to an even more fertile recruiting ground, Florida. A dynamic offense at GT could probably outscore a lot of the teams in the conference even if it’s backed by a merely good defense.

I would imagine right now that Tech fans are hungering for three things: consistent contention in the ACC, a break of Georgia’s seven-game winning streak, and a product on the field that is not boring like Chan Gailey’s teams were. I fully expect to see the first and third happen within two years, but the second could be tough given how good the Bulldogs are right now.

Paul Johnson’s track record indicates he should do better than the 7-5 records that Chan Gailey put up seemingly every year. For that reason alone, it was a good move for Georgia Tech to replace the old coach with the new.

Further reading, with videos

Navy vs. Notre Dame 2007

Flexbonin’

How Good is the Preseason Consensus at Picking BCS Teams?

If you’ve never looked at football.stassen.com, you ought to take a look. It has a lot of great resources for college football research.

One of the best things on the site is the compilation of the preseason consensus. It allows you to see what everyone was thinking before the season starts, and it goes back to 1993.

I decided to go back and look to see how good the preseason consensus was at predicting BCS participants.

By Preseason Conference Rankings

I first looked to see where the BCS conference participants were ranked in the preseason standings.

As it turns out, there’s almost always one wild card in the BCS. Every year except two – 1998 and 2003 – had a team ranked fifth or below in its conference/division make the BCS. The 2003 season was anomalous in that the BCS had six first place picks and two second place picks in it. The 1998 season had five first place picks, two second place picks, and one third place pick.

The lowest-picked teams to make the BCS were 1999 Stanford and 2002 Iowa who both were picked eighth in their conferences.

Only three seasons had more than four first place conference/division picks make the BCS. I’ve already mentioned ’98 and ’03, and the third was 2001 with five. However rather than being totally orderly, ’01 also had two seventh place picks make it in Maryland and Illinois.

Here is a table showing the frequency of making the BCS for each preseason conference/division ranking.

Frequency of BCS Appearances

Conf./Div. Ranking	Teams in BCS	Teams per Year
1	41	4.1
2	16	1.6
3	10	1.0
4	2	0.2
5	2	0.2
6	1	0.1
7	4	0.4
8	2	0.2

First Place Picks

Here is a table of how well the teams that were picked first in their conferences or divisions did at getting into the BCS.

“1s in BCS” refers to how many first place picks from the conference made the BCS. “BCS Teams” tells how many total BCS teams the conference has fielded. “Tot. 1 Picks” tells how many total first place picks the conference had in the BCS era. For conferences without divisions, it’s one a year; for conferences with divisions, it’s two a year.

First Place Picks in the BCS

Conference	1s in BCS	BCS Teams	Pct.	Tot. 1 Picks	Pct. in BCS
ACC	7	10	70%	13	53.8%
Big 12	9	14	64.3%	20	45%
Big East	6	10	60%	10	60%
Big Ten	5	17	29.4%	10	50%
Pac-10	8	12	66.7%	10	80%
SEC	6	15	40%	20	30%

We see a couple things in this.

The Big Ten’s first place picks make a very small percentage of its total BCS participants, thanks to having the smallest number of first place picks make the BCS but the largest number of BCS teams.

The Big 12 and especially the SEC had trouble putting their preseason first place picks in the BCS. In the case of the Big 12, part of it was guessing incorrectly as to whether OU or Texas would win the South. The SEC was a little messier, and I’ll explain more about that later.

Consensus Teams

I finally took a look at consensus teams. In this case, I defined a “consensus team” as a team that received three or fewer rankings of below first for its conference/division.

Surprisingly, only 29 of the 47 (61.7%) consensus teams made the BCS. Here is the number of consensus teams by year:

Consensus Teams by Season

Season	Consensus Teams
1998	4
1999	5
2000	4
2001	3
2002	4
2003	4
2004	6
2005	6
2006	8
2007	4

It’s interesting that from 1998 to 2003, there were never more than five consensus teams, and that only happened once. During that time, 69.57% of the consensus teams made the BCS.

In 2004 and 2005, there were six consensus teams, and in 2006 there were eight consensus teams. During those years where everyone suddenly agreed more often, just 45% of consensus teams made the BCS. Things toned down a bit in 2007, when all four consensus teams got to BCS bowls.

The Big Ten has only had five consensus teams, but all five have made the BCS. It appears that when everyone agrees on the Big Ten, its preseason champ makes the BCS; when everyone doesn’t necessarily agree, it’s preseason champ doesn’t make the BCS.

The Pac-10 has also had just five consensus teams. Only 1999 Arizona failed to make the BCS; the other four were USC from 2003-07. That’s an 80% success rate.

Next up in accuracy was the Big 12, which had nine consensus division winners in the BCS era. Seven of them made the BCS for a 77.8% accuracy rate. The two that missed it were 1999 Texas A&M and 2006 Nebraska.

After the Big 12 came the ACC. It had ten conference/division consensus teams, and six of them made the BCS (60%). Three of the failed four were divisional picks – VT in 2005 and both FSU and Miami in 2006 – with only 2001 FSU falling short among pre-divisional play consensus teams (all of which were of course FSU as well).

We fall below .500 in accuracy with consensus Big East picks. Only two of the five consensus teams made the BCS, but interestingly the misses came from 2004-06. It shows that people were pretty sure they knew what was going to happen post-ACC raid, but we can see in hindsight that really no one knew what was going to happen on many levels.

Finally, we see that the SEC was the most difficult to predict. It had 13 consensus teams and at least one a year, but only five of them made the BCS. That’s a 38.5% success rate.

Funnily enough, every time Florida has been a consensus team (’98, ’01, and ’06), it has made the BCS. The other two hits were ’99 Tennessee and ’07 LSU. Eastern division consensus teams were 4-2 in making the BCS; Western division consensus teams were 1-6 in making the BCS. This seems to further confirm the fact that the SEC West is generally more wide open than the SEC East, which has only ever been won by Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee.

What about 2008?

As of writing this, only eight preseason rankings have been included for 2008. For comparison, Stassen.com used 18 in 2007.

What is amazing is the uniformity of the picks. Clemson and VT are unanimous in the ACC. Missouri and Oklahoma are unanimous in the Big 12. West Virginia is unanimous in the Big East (and USF is the only pick for second in the conference). Ohio State is the only one picked to win the Big Ten so far, just like USC is the only one picked to win the Pac-10.

Everyone is in complete agreement about the selection of seven of the nine conference/divisional top dogs. The only discrepancy? That fickle old SEC, where Florida and Georgia are split even in the East and LSU has a five picks to three advantage over Auburn.

We haven’t seen this much agreement since 2006 when only the Big 12 South was disputed. The success rate in that year was only three out of eight correct.

There is still time left and many more rankings to go, so we may not end up with quite this much consensus when the season starts. Just remember that if your BCS picks all fit with the conventional wisdom, history says you’ll only be about half right.