After a brief hiatus to allow the conference races to play themselves out, ESPN Stats & Information’s Conference Power Rankings are back in time for Rivalry Week.
As a quick refresher, the Conference Power Rankings use a formula that equally weighs the rankings from The Associated Press poll and ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) to determine the best and worst conferences in the country. The AP poll is designed to capture the strength at the top of a conference, and FPI is intended to capture conference depth.
After several idle weeks for the rankings, their order has changed. The Big 12 now sits atop the Conference Power Rankings after its top teams proved to be stronger and more consistent than the top teams in any other conference. The Big 12 holds three of the top nine spots in the latest AP poll, and its top two teams -- Oklahoma and Baylor -- lead the country in FPI. That means that if Oklahoma or Baylor were to face any other team on a neutral field, FPI would favor the Big 12 power in that game. With potentially underrated teams such as West Virginia and Texas Tech -- who were 6-0 with a plus-181 scoring margin in nonconference play -- the Big 12 is also deceptively deep, which contributed to its overall ranking.
Despite the Big 12’s position at the top of the Power Rankings, another conference appears to have a clearer path to the College Football Playoff. Like the Big 12, the Big Ten’s strength is at the top of its conference. Iowa, Michigan State and Ohio State rank in the top eight of the latest AP poll, and Michigan is not far behind at No. 12.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Big Ten is clearly the No. 2 conference in the rankings despite having the lowest average FPI of any Power 5 conference. With Rutgers, Purdue and Maryland outside the FPI top 80, the gap between the top and bottom of the Big Ten is more drastic than in any other conference. But given the strength of its top teams, what happens at the bottom of the conference standings might not matter in the playoff era.
The SEC has declined more than any other conference in the past two months. Although the SEC has beaten itself up in conference play, there is no denying that when Florida needs overtime to squeak by Florida Atlantic and South Carolina loses to The Citadel from the FCS, the SEC has taken a major hit. Even previously AP-ranked teams such as LSU, Georgia and Texas A&M are not the same teams that thrived earlier in the year (injuries are one factor). That said, the SEC remains one of the deepest conferences in the country, and its worst teams would be favored over the worst teams in many other conferences.
We will learn more about the true strength of the SEC this week in the annual ACC-versus-SEC rivalry games. Georgia faces Georgia Tech, Kentucky hosts Louisville, South Carolina meets Clemson and Florida takes on Florida State in games that can shape the perceptions of each conference. Last year, the ACC went 4-0 in those games, and given the current perception of the SEC, the conference cannot afford another sweep.