Ranking the conferences

Yesterday I gave you my preseason top 25 that will be the beginning point for our power rankings after the season starts.

Today, I rank the conferences based on the preseason rankings of all teams (1-119). It's important to note that this is not necessarily a "which conference has more good teams" type ranking, as it includes all teams in every conference. Too often supporters of the Big 12 will say, "Look at OU, Texas and Missouri" and forget about Baylor and Iowa State. Same thing for the SEC and the ACC.

Secondly, the number to the right of the conference name is the average ranking of all teams in that conference in our preseason poll. Using this method Baylor counts just as much as Texas does, and Duke counts the same as Clemson.

With that in mind here we go:

1. SEC - 32.67
2. Big 12 - 36.33
3. Big 10 - 38.09
4. Big East - 38.63
5. PAC-10 - 40.40
6. ACC - 43.75
7. MWC - 69.67
8. WAC - 81.89
9. C-USA - 84.75
10. MAC - 91.46
11. Sun Belt - 103.63

There's obviously a huge drop after the first 6, and actually quite a bit of difference between 1 and 2 and even between 5 and 6. Simply put, the ACC has a long way to go to make up any ground. Can it be done? Sure, just win on the field and it will take care of itself.

There are ample opportunities for the ACC to change the perception that it is a weak conference this fall. A review of the schedule shows that the ACC has 10 games scheduled against the SEC, 4 each against the Big 12 and Big East, 2 against the PAC-10 and 1 against the Big 10. That's 21 games against other power conferences.

The rest of the ACC non-conference schedule looks like this: FCS teams (14), C-USA (5), Independent (4), MAC (2), Sun Belt (2).