WHADDYA GOT THERE, NUMBERS?: SMART PEOPLE DO NOT DEFEND THE BIG TEN

For the second January in a row, we've seen "the" Ohio State University lay an egg against premier competition, and the Big Ten take an absolute beating in bowl season. The popular media has, among other things, shoved the SEC's superior athleticism and week-in and week-out competitiveness down our throats as the rationale for what we've seen.

Unfortunately as a Penn State fan, I have to agree here. Look at the Big Ten's Sagarin rankings by conference for the last 10 years. Outside of an anomalous 2005 where Ohio State and Penn State had phenomenal years and each won BCS games, the Big Ten has been in a relative freefall since 1999 (use the central mean numbers in parentheses to draw cross-year strength comparisons):

1998: 2nd (79.83)
1999: 1st (82.79)
2000: 3rd (76.76)
2001: 5th (76.59)
2002: 5th (77.50)
2003: 3rd (77.59)
2004: 5th (75.63)
2005: 1st (80.72)
2006: 5th (74.89)
2007: 6th (74.63)

I'm avoiding doing the linear regression for now, but let me assure that it's a clear negative slope. The difference between 1999 and 2007's strength index is about 8 points, a decline of about a point per year. During that same period (smoothing over a two year period at each extreme), the delta for each conference on a half point scale:

ACC: even
Big East: +4.5 pts
Big Ten: -6.5 pts
Big 12: -2 pts
Pac-10: +3 pts
SEC: +3 pts

Fairly clearly, the past ten years have been disastrous for the B10 (and not great for the B12 -- think Nebraska). The 1999 peak represents by nearly a full point the best showing across all conferences (next closest? this year's SEC). How the mighty have fallen. There is no question that the B10 is not even close to past levels of competition at the moment. This has been great for the pack leader, OSU -- only two conference losses in the last three years has led to three consecutive BCS bowl births and two national title appearances. However, there is no question that winning out the way they did in 2001 in a conference a full two points stronger prepared them far better for the national championship, or at least suggested they were a better team.

To put this year's 74.63 rating into context, the best non-BCS conference ranking of the last ten years (excluding independents) is the MWC of 2004 which finished with a 72.08, which marginally beat out the Big East's 71.98 (thank you, Alex Smith!) This is the only instance of this happening. Holistically though, the BCS/non-BCS gap has dwindled from 8-10 points to 0-2 points over that period. Is increasing parity good for college football? We're finding out as we speak. I struggle to envision how the BCS would defend itself if the MWC began consistently fielding stronger conference competition than the B10. If current trends continue this might only be five years away, but with average Sagarin rating across all BCS conferences holding steady its more likely that the B10 is the (mostly) lone sufferer. I leave calculating the reasons for this general trend as an exercise for the reader.

To summarize rather bluntly, the Big Ten blows right now, and watching Penn State the past two falls I've felt a particularly excruciating irritation with the quality of play. The 2004 Iowa-Penn State game was probably the ugliest piece of NCAA football ever produced. The past two years have been a return to mediocrity. The end result of all of this? OSU has an excellent chance at another run to the crown next year, but if that doesn't happen there likely will only be one B10 entrant in the BCS.