Rudimentary Analysis of BCS Win/Loss Records; 2002 – Present

In an effort to determine where the Michigan athletic department stands relative to our BCS conference peers, I have compiled the win/loss records for all the constituent programs for the last 8 years.  I knew it wouldn’t be pretty, but I’m kind of a masochist and wanted to quantify how far we have fallen.

Details and Assumptions

• The analysis includes 66 teams:  65 BCS conference teams from the ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big 12, PAC 10, and SEC, plus Notre Dame (here, included as part of the Big East for both football and basketball).  The basketball-exclusive Big East members are omitted.

o   The records include all games, included those against non-BCS (or non-FCS) opponents.

•       The records cited are the complete records for the 2002 – 2009 seasons (the year being when the season began), including all post-season play.  For basketball, conference tourney, NIT, and NCAA tournament records are weighted equally.

•       The Overall record is an equally weighted average of the football and basketball records [(FB% + BB%) / 2).

•       Baseball and hockey were omitted due to the inherent regional bias (and laziness).

•       There is a laundry list of flaws in the methodology, but I only had so much free time at work, and the results are intended to be interesting, not irrefutable.

The most basic question is: where does our athletic department relative to other BCS conference teams.  Based on the analysis described above, we are the 34^th best BCS program in the country (out of 66) for the time period in question:

Michigan State is 33^rd for the same period.  Under Lloyd Carr from 2002 – 2007, Michigan was the 10^th best football program (not ripping RR, just sayin’).

The top programs in the country for the time period are as follows:

The Utahs, Boise States, Memphises, et al of the world would probably appear above, but their inclusion would complicate the analysis.

What is the best conference overall?  The Big East, apparently:

With the exception of Big East basketball, the conference games are a wash by definition, so the above should reflect non-conference performance (with many caveats, of course, like the relative cupcakiness of non-con scheduling). 

Unsurprisingly, the SEC is the top football conference.  Surprisingly, the Big East is second.  The PAC 10 comes in last in both, which is a result of middling surprisingness.

Finally, the teams that Michigan is most similar to in other BCS conferences:

That is all.