I don't have enough college football knowledge compared to many others on here to give a really well thought out opinion, other than to say this:


If we're talking about best/worst FBS conferences, I think we should look at all of the games over the last five years for a trend, not just this year's exhibition Bowl Game Record.

I don't know the answer to this. I do know the conference lost all the momentum it had built in the 1990s and early 2000s. There was a brief but wonderful time where the nation was convinced the next starting quarterback to their favorite NFL team could very likely come from a MAC program.

They do, but the 3-4 games played before the conference season starts do as well.

If bowl game records are the indicator of conference strength, does that mean the Big 10 is the second worst conference with a 3-7 bowl record?

Is the MAC the worst FBS conference? This year, top to bottom, it appears so.

Is the Big10 the second worst? Maybe the second worst P5 conference.

Top?

That's pretty obvious, and is one reason you can't compare the conferences solely based on bowl games. For example, at the recent Dollar General Bowl, Troy fans outnumbered Ohio fans by what, 20:1? It's not quite a home game for Troy, but close. It's not a deciding factor, just a small advantage for southern teams.

I'd be careful reading too much into a single year's bowl record. Sometimes there is the luck of the draw, and you get mostly unfavorable matchups, and sometimes you get favorable ones. This year the matchups weren't favorable. I think Toledo was a pick-em, and everyone else was an underdog. As a contrast, back in 2011 the MAC was 4-1 in bowls, which, as I recall, was the best of any conference. Does that mean that in 2011 the MAC was the best Conference in America? Hardly. It just means that in that particular year the MAC got uniquely favorable matchups.

So, how would I rank the G5 conferences? For 2016, I personally would rank it this way:

1. AAC
2. MWC
3. Sunbelt, MAC (tie)
5. CUSA

For 2015 I think the MAC was ahead of the Sunbelt. How will the two compare in 2017? I have no idea.

Why do I put CUSA behind the MAC? To me the difference is at the bottom. This year Buffalo was pretty awful, I'll grant you, the worst single team in either conference. Other than that, though, the MAC didn't have any really horrible teams. The next worst, as a group were Ball State, Kent, BG, and Akron, which in my mind were all pretty close. I think that all four of those teams would be favored in a game against any of the six worst teams in CUSA, Charlotte, Marshall, FAU, FIU, UTEP, or Rice. [Yes, I just said that probably the only MAC team that Marshall could have defeated this year was Buffalo.] In fact, there were two matchups from these two groups this year, with Akron beating Marshall, and Ball State defeating FAU, so there is empirical evidence to support my opinion.

I think that's an excellent point! To play devils advocate, however, I would argue that the better teams in CUSA are better than the top teams in the MAC. W Kentucky, Old Dominion (a very recent FBS newbie), Mid Tennessee, and La Tech are all pretty decent G5 teams. Southern Miss even had a pretty decent season with a first year head coach. Someone mentioned top to bottom being the worst and I feel at least for this season that's a pretty fair statement.

The top half of the Sun Belt was just as good as the top half of the MAC this year. It'll be interesting to see what happens down there when they get their conference championship game sorted out.

Avg Sagarin ratings (using overall rating):

American 66.87 0-10-2
MW 62.58 0-7-5
MAC 59.14
SB 59.12 4-2-5
CUSA 53.83 3-2-7

I then went and compared top to bottom with each conference. Taking only teams with a difference of more than 3 points head to head they MAC would theoretically be:

0-11 vs American (WMU <3 pts better than Tulsa)
0-7 vs MW (5 head to head matchups separated by <3 pts)
4-2 vs SB (5 head to head matchups separated by <3 pts)
3-2 vs CUSA (7 head to head matchups separated by <3 pts)

I agree, including the bottom of CUSA, the MAC is slightly better. The MAC East by itself however...

L.C. That record is 4-18 since 2012. I would say the Mac is headed downwards and becoming less and less relevant.

I don't know that I would totally agree with that. Maybe 5-10 years ago, but the Sunbelt has quietly gone from the worst to very competetive. Arkansas State and Troy are good every year, and the addition of App State. I think it's approaching the MAC consistently these days. I'm not a big believe in bowl games as the measuring stick (for the reason pointed out above they are always home games for southern teams), but the MAC has had a lot of opportunities of late and has not done well against them.

This is a history of all games vs the two conferences: http://www.mcubed.net/ncaaf/tvc/sunbelt/mac.shtml Sun Belt is 19-15 this decade.

I would argue that C-USA is still better than the MAC. Southern Miss as a program is on another tier, and La Tech and MTSU are consistently very good. It was interesting to see ODU jump to FBS and right into this conference and do so well. Marshall and North Texas are MAC-level programs. FAU and FIU are growing programs (as all are in Florida) and have much more potential than anyone in the MAC. I don't know that the bottom of C_USA (UTEP, Rice and Charlotte) is that much worse to push it below the MAC.