As an ACC fan even I find that funny, but we are early in the season and Miami-FSU probably scored so highly since they were both top-ten at the time. The you also have the SEC's big 5 for right now and last I checked the Big 10 looked very solid, too. Ah, like I said it's early.

Would be interesting to check this middle of the year and see the range of scores within each conference. Comparing the median and the average scores to see which league is top heavy and which is truly deep.

BlackGold, no offense as you and I often disagree on many subjects.

The Sagarin rankings are a joke!

BlackGold, you are absolutly correct and I read the USA Today each day and can't avoid looking into the Sargarin ratings. Entertainment is a big plus and most likely reason that USA Today carries the ratings.

I guess the frustrations are with the lack of having a method that truly ranks teams and conferences accurately.

Is the WAC better than the MWC? Is the WAC better than half of the BCS conferences this year? Is the ACC the best football conference with Miami added? Is the Big East lower than some non BCS conference?

The only sure method is playing on the field.

The Pac 10 and Big 10 play a lot of cross over games and the champions then play on the Rose Bowl field. This provides a very good indication of which conference is having the better year.

Until the ACC expanded to 12, this would have been a good method for ACC and Big East comparisons since a lot of cross over games were currently scheduled.

Currently the only method I can really trust on head to head action with comparison of conference teams. This is difficult to do since the best teams of one conference do not always play the best teams of the other conference.

I do believe the best comparison between conferences is measured with scheduled games between OOC of each conference. This is similiar to how the post season is compared.

The BE is underated because CUSA still has 3 schools that will be BE next year #22 Louisville and Cincinnati and USF that will replace BC and Temple.

Sagarin always has some strange results. However, Sagarin himself will tell you his ratings are meaningless at this point in the season as he still has some of last year's data included as he doesn't have enough games this year. He finally drops last year's data sometime in October.

As they don't provide more details about how this was compiled, perhaps we should reinterpret the title to "Most Competitive?" With the exception of Washington, which this year is a big exception, every team in the conference is decent. That being said I'd be surprised to see the 4th and 5th best teams in the PAC 10 beating their counterparts in the SEC or Big 10.

Then again, this is all for discussion, it's early in the season and it's not as if they're suggesting the PAC 10 should apply for NFL status! Thanks for the link.

Gunner, The following link gives some details on how the individual team rankings are determined: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbt04.htm

In addition, info on how the two types of conference averages are done can be found at:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/fbc04.htm

The USA Today article showed the simple average approach.

How accurate are Sagarins conference rankings?

The MWC has only two teams with winning records so far this season and one of those is Wyoming and the other is Utah.

The Big East on the other hand has only one team with a losing record and that team is lame duck Temple.

Yet Sagarin conference rankings have the MWC ranked higher than the Big East.

I for one can not consider a conference with an average losing record per teams better than one that has an average winning record per team better no matter the SOS.

Since when is losing consider better than winning?

Normally Sagarin keeps some results from the prior year factored in until sometime in October. He will tell you his ratings are meaningless at this point. He just doesn't have enough data. Even after he does, he sometimes has some strange results. My guess is that last year's data is keeping the MWC ratings up, combined with the fact that they are losing to more good teams.

His ELO ratings without margin of victory are not particularly reliable, because they don't have enough data. They are based on the chess system. In that system, ratings are considered temporary until you have 21 games. Football teams never have that many. Also, they are very dependent on who you play. That would make a group with a tougher schedule higher rated than one with a weaker schedule who won more.

Sagarin does the ELO ratings just did them to stay in the BCS calculations.

ELO chess:

With the name, Sagarin is basing his system on the ELO chess rating system. I don't know exactly how Sagarin's system works, but the original ELO chess sytem (its gotten a little more complicated with computers) worked like this:

Your rating = your opponent's rating if you drew
= your opponent's rating + 500 points if you won
= your opponent's rating - 500 points if you lost.

So, if you played 5 grandmasters rated 2600 and lost all 5 your rating would be 2100.

If you played 5 low Class C players rated 1400 and won all 5 your rating would be 1900.

So you could go 5-0 and be lower rated than someone going 0-5. In chess with a lot of games and with a variety of opponents it makes sense. In college football with few games and no guarantee that you will play a mix of opponents it has serious weaknesses.