In a Friday morning article by ESPN’s Bill Connelly, the Big 12 Conference was praised as the “Wildest conference in college football.”
The article discussed the SEC and Big Ten continuing to grow richer despite a widening gap among member institutions, resulting in less competitive football products.
In the story, Connelly dropped an interesting fact regarding the amount of one-score games by conference. According to Connelly’s report, the Big 12 led all conferences, with 46.5% of games being settled by one score or less (Big Ten 36.3, SEC 33%).
“Nearly half of the Big 12’s conference games finished within one score over the last six seasons, and that was with two fence-post programs, Oklahoma and Texas, that dominated the field financially,” Connelly said. “The Big 12 traded its two heavyweights for four programs — Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah officially became conference members Aug. 2 — that are far closer to the rest of the pack in terms of spending and potential. This trade didn’t make the conference comparatively better or richer, obviously, but it all but assured that a conference already known for an abundance of close games and chaos will only become more chaotic moving forward.”
Connelly then mentioned the discrepancy between teams in the Big Ten with a chance of winning the league to that of the Big 12, which resulted in four Big Ten teams receiving a combined chance of 91.8% to win it all. In the Big 12, however, the top eight teams in the league combined for smaller title odds than the Big Ten at 91.3%
While the Big Ten and SEC may get the benefit of the doubt as the top two Power Conferences in America, no one can dispute the Big 12’s competitive level of play.
