Looking Back, Looking Forward

Before we charge into the season ahead, let's look at the final PRI rankings from last season:



BCS - BCS final standings as of December 6th, 2010
AP - Final AP Poll after all the Tostitos were won on January 11th, 2011
Bowl - X if a team made a bowl game, a bold X if they made a BCS game.  USC has a P to denote their ineligibility.

So what can we glean?

It was a mediocre year to start off.  Lots of teams in that 6-8 win area.  Given how the season played out, it's no surprise that unfancied and untraditional teams like Auburn, Oregon, Oklahoma State and Michigan State had a great deal of success.

Certainly it appears there are too many bowl games, with either Middle Tennessee or Kentucky ending up as my lowest-ranked bowl participants thus far (2008 Memphis was 105th) and bowl tie-ins being the only thing that merited their postseason play.  Connecticut is the lowest ranked BCS that I can recall offhand, which makes sense if you recall how desperately poor the league as a whole was last year.

Notre Dame's attempt to dumb down their schedule ended up with a slate that had 10 bowl teams and an 11th (Western Michigan) that was bowl eligible.  It's obvious the strength of schedule component of the formula has a large effect by design, as the unexpected high placement of 7-5 Washington, 5-7 Oregon State and 5-7 Texas.

The Big 12's strong showing is surprising at first, but they were probably the least mediocre of the top 7 conferences (BCS + Mountain West).  It was a down year for the SEC, postseason success notwithstanding.  The Big Ten and Pac-10 were top heavy, the ACC was won by a team that lost to  James Madison and it seemed nobody wanted to win the Big East last year.

Comments are welcome.