To be fair, how many of those games are against teams who requested them - not so much for the chance to take down an SEC team as for the money? (How many of these games are away games for the SEC team?) You try paying for 14 sports (which is a requirement for all Division I schools - and if you’re not in DI, you don’t get a share of the DI basketball money).
Orders of Magnitude? :dubious:
But I guess you don’t have a problem with one of your schools insist on being called THE Ohio State University. Just how pretentious is that?
How about “The U” ? 
“THE SW Central Louisiana State A&M of Eunice!”
To be fair, a lot of the lower FBS schools and some FCS schools seek money to play the upper level schools. That’s how they fund their programs. I just think the SEC likes to feed off these schools a little more than the other conferences, then use their non-conference record as proof of their superiority.
It’s a bit silly, but when you’re a Big Ten school it’s quite difficult to be modest, being the leaders and best and all.
I think this is he proof of their superiority
Jan 8, 2007: Florida 41, OSU 14
Jan 7, 2008: LSU 38, OSU 24
Jan 8, 2009: Florida 24, Oklahoma 14
Jan 7, 2010: Alabama 37, Texas 21
Jan 10, 2011: Auburn 22, Oregon 19
Jan 7, 2013: Alabama 42, Notre Dame 14
The non-conference record is irrelevant in the SEC. The games that matter are the conference games–at one point, 6 of the 7 teams in the SEC West were ranked teams this year. Mississippi State just beat three Top 10 teams (#8, #6, and #2) in consecutive games. Nobody else has done that in the last 30 years, and only 5 teams have ever done it.
Sorry OAK, OoC games are not irrelevant. If SECw was losing those OoC games they would not be ranked in the top 10.
But the fact is the SECw has won all their OoC games, and games against the SECe. All of them.
If the SEC was losing all those BCS Nat’l Championship (Non conference in most of them), the SEC would not boasting as much as they are.
Posted this in the other thread, but when Sagarin has Auburn ranked OVER THE TEAM THAT JUST BEAT THEM, he loses all credibility. I’m okay with looking at computer models in the abstract, but when the model can’t adjust to what happened on the actual field of play, what the fuck good is it? It’d be like Romney trying to schedule his inauguration because exit polls showed he should have won. The actual game is the most dispassionate and objective arbiter there is, but apparently Sagarin’s model has a problem with that.
When Cal beat WSU by an identical score last week, it was widely derided as a farce. I don’t hear anybody sneering about Baylor-TCU.
You’re not looking very hard.
Cal plays a Power 5 team every year – we just completed a home-and-home with Ohio State and Northwestern, and have Texas coming up the next 2 years.
Tennessee – to their everlasting credit – played home-and-home in the past 10 years with Cal, UCLA and Oregon (and lost 5 out of 6).
Georgia has never been the toughest scheduler, especially since we get Tech OOC at the end of the year. But working from memory, we have also played Clemson, Ok State, Arizona State, Boise State, and even Colorado in the past few years.
I seem to remember LSU playing UW, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Oregon in recent memory.
This is all a futile argument though I’d say. Nobody’s going to change their mind even if someone points out they are wrong. Classic college football argument! I have my reservations about the playoff system but at least it will let us reduce some of these cat fights at the end of the season.
It was the same total, but the Cal/Wazzu game was one point, not 2.
Are you trying to tell me that Northwestern is a first tier team?
Ohio St vs Cal is the exception that proves the rule.
Perennial Top 10 teams do not play 2nd Tier teams from other conferences.
Baylor and TCU were Top 10 teams. :smack: 
Honestly, I didn’t see any sneering about the Cal/WSU game. I don’t think anyone cared.
if you take the margin of victory out of the equation, Ole Miss is #1, Miss St #2, and Auburn #3.
(last column)
Which points out part of the problem. When winning early games by a lot outweighs LOSING, the model is wrong. Football is not about margin of victory or strength of schedule. There is exactly ONE stat that matters and it seems like Sagarin’s model does a poor job of accounting for actual head-to-head matchups. Unless the purpose is to predict who would win if they played again - which under the current system is extremely unlikely to happen and of very limited utility.
I love how you come up with this stupid ass argument all the time, and every year someone points out how you Big 10 fans cherry pick teams because it’s such a stupid point.
You left off SEC opponents Oklahoma, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida St, UCF, Louisville, and Indiana (who admittedly sucks). Don’t pick half the SEC, then compare their OOC schedule to the few decent OOC opponents that you can find throughout the entire Big 10.
As if that isn’t enough, we beat your ass in the bowls every year in head-to-head matchups.
You don’t get the trophy for being the best team all season. You get it for being the best at the end of the season.
Or did I miss a rule that says that the committees that choose the teams for the College Football Playoff and the at-large teams for the Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament aren’t allowed to take things like current injuries into account?
No, they beat 3 teams ranked in the top 10 that week. There is no way you can call LSU or A&M a top 10 team.
If you ignore OOC scheduling, then you just get into circular logic. The SEC West is awesome because they play the other teams in the SEC West, which is awesome.
“were” ranked is significant: LSU sucks.