Wednesday's prediction.
#36: The Big East will have the worst non-conference home record for a BCS conference, winning somewhere around 75% of games, which sounds pretty good, until you look at how easy the non-conference slate is. Here's a breakdown, by the numbers, of their non-conference home games.
40% of non-conference home games are against I-AA teams. Second only to the ACC, who plays 46% of theirs against I-AA teams.
32% are against non-BCS teams. Half of those non-BCS teams did not go to a bowl game last season. Is this sounding easy yet?
Of their 7 non-conference home games against BCS teams, none of the 7 have won their conference (or won their division within their conference) in the last 5 years. Only 3 of the 7 have had a 10-win season in the last decade (only one of those taking place in the last 5 years, Notre Dame with Brady Quinn, and that seems like ages ago, doesn't it?).
So with that easy of a schedule, how do I justify picking them to have the worst record? Easy: they by far are the worst BCS conference, they might not even be the best non-BCS conference. A side note: this isn't even the easiest (or second easiest) non-conference home schedule among BCS conferences. More to come on that later.
The problem I see with the Big East: They will continue to schedule weak out of conference until they are forced to defend their BCS status. They have absolutely no incentive to schedule the TCU/Boise State's of the world. That's why they schedule the "East Mississippi Tech."
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