Around the Big Ten

[AlabamAlum]

Heh.

[CGVT]

I meant Mike Shula, but you knew that

[WM Wolverine]

These days conferences are hardly even conferences anymore, M only plays 3 of the 7 teams in the opposing division. ACC only plays 2 in the opposing division. Ditto SEC, even then I think they have 1 'rivalry' game too...

In college football at least, you nearly have to break the conference into the divisions if they aren't playing the same schedule.

I've always been big into statistics (being a sabermetric nerd in the early 90's) and used to have my own ranking system for college football (or any sport). This was back before any websites like ESPN did and only Jeff Sagarin really did anything similar as I wanted something more objective in college football than the polls. I only did it for my own personal interest. It wasn't long that I found a ton of other websites doing something similar.

Even back then, I found one of the flaws in college football was that nobody played remotely similar schedules. One team might play 3 top 10 opponents and a couple other top 30 teams, while another might play just 1 top 25 team in a season. When team X played 4 to 5 more challenging opponents than other teams, it's really difficult to know which team was better when one had a better win, loss record. That's where the 'computer' rankings came in, strength of schedule, and conference strength. It really showed me that what I thought was happening was true, that a lot of teams in college football played dramatically tougher schedules than others. It's still an issue today, I'm still a major proponent of computer rankings when there is enough data but even then, it's getting even less useful with teams playing teams from opposing conferences even less and conferences getting larger.

[AlabamAlum]

Sure, there is a wide disparity of schedules. And I agree with you to a large degree.

The only real fix for that is for the P5 to seperate from the mid majors, become a super conference and truly homogenize schedules across those 60-70 teams.

[Dr. Strangelove]

These are the pro sports franchises SEC programs are competing with for the sports entertainment dollar. Includes year the franchise was created and alltime record. Most of them are too new to have yet developed any generational support or have historically sucked. I'm not counting Dallas teams since I'd argue that's a Big12 market. Miami teams might be a stretch too but I included them.

Houston Astros (1962) (.488 )
Atlanta Braves (1966) (.516)
Atlanta Falcons (1966) (.434)
Miami Dolphins (1966) (.561)
New Orleans Saints (1967) (.441)
Atlanta Hawks (1969) (.501)
Houston Rockets (1972) (.531)
Tampa Bay Bucs (1976) (.385)
Miami Heat (1989) (.519)
Orlando Magic (1990) (.494)
Tampa Bay Lightning (1992) (.470)
Florida Panthers (1993) (.488 )
Miami Marlins (1993) (.469)
Jacksonville Jaguars (1993) (.454)
Tennessee Titans (1997) (.505)
Nashville Predators (1998 ) (.540)
Tampa Bay Rays (1998 )(.464)
Houston Texans (2002) (.430)
Memphis Grizzlies (2002) (.488 )
New Orleans Pelicans (2003) (.470)

[Dr. Strangelove]

Realize now I left Missouri teams off too. Oh well. Fuck it. They'll probably be in the Big10 eventually anyways. Shit

[WM Wolverine]

That's a truly sad list of professional sport franchises. Just add 3 B1G states (out of 11) together and you'd have a more successful list.

[AlabamAlum]

The Pelicans/Hornets really predate 2003. The nucleus of those fans were displaced NOLA Jazz fans going back to the 1970's

But yeah, much less professional team saturation in the south, no doubt.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I believe Atlanta has had (and lost) two hockey franchises as well. Both moved to Canada

[AlabamAlum]

I believe Atlanta has had (and lost) two hockey franchises as well. Both moved to Canada

Just had to scrape the scab off that wound, didn't you jrg98?

[Dr. Strangelove]

Winnipeg is just more of a big league kinda town, I guess. Saban should have a neutral site game there

[AlabamAlum]

lmao.

Well done.

[whodean]

The anti-SEC perception isn't restricted to sports...there's widespread belief in the South, at least historically, that the South has been horribly mistreated, insulted, abused, and misjudged by the rest of the country since the dawn of time. Perhaps that is dying out as time goes by but the historical memory of the South is full of real and imagined grievances.

This is where the conversation got silly

[AlabamAlum]

This is where the conversation got silly

Disagree. It got silly as soon as DSL logged on.

[WM Wolverine]

If you have relatives in the south, you'd realize the Dr. is very accurate.