Hey look the Big 12 has a bunch of teams ranked in the top 11 now so walla they've surpassed the SEC as the best conference in football right? Or have they? What happens when you never play any challenging out of conference football games? Well unless you are Michigan you stay undefeated and alas the story of the Big 12.
The chart above shows the out of conference schedule for each Big 12 team, and conveniently the Big 12 schedules and plays all of their out of conference games in the first 4 weeks of the year, so they are all done. The chart also highlights in yellow the BCS teams they play and in light green the non-BCS teams they play who have an above .500 record. So let's dig into it a bit.
Who actually played good BCS schools? Well Baylor for one. Wake Forest is amongst the class of the albeit miserable ACC and UConn is a solid squad from well again another miserable BCS conference. Baylor lost both games. Colorado also played two solid BCS schools from the ACC and Big East and managed to split the games. Winning at home against overrated and undercoached WVU and losing to Florida St. Kansas had arguably the biggest non-conference game for the Big 12 when they faced off again versus a Big East squad when they lost at South Florida. Mizzou knocked off the Juice and the Zook who have proven the overall squad might not be that hot. Nebraska took the loss at home against VaTech who's stature is still TBD. Awful A&M proved itself to be so at home against the building U. Oklahoma dominated the Bearcats at home.
So amongst those what really stands out? Everyone is proclaiming the Big 12 conference on the basis of Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Texas, Texas Tech, Mizzou and Kansas so let's just focus on them. Arkansas is terrible so I don't really credit Texas much for that victory. Cincy is 5-1 but they essentially have done so by playing the MAC. Mizzou beat Illinois at home but in the process gave up 42 points to a team already with 3 losses who just lost to Minnesota. Kansas lost their only big out of conference game and Ok St. and Texas Tech have essentially defeated nobody of note.
I think the only thing we've learned about the Big 12 so far is that they like cupcakes much like the Big 10 last year. Teams are undefeated partially because they've played inferior opponents over the course of 4 weeks.
Basically what I'm saying is matchup the SEC and Big 12 and give me the SEC any day of the week.
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