It is beginning to sounds like a broken record, but for a third-straight week the SEC rose in the conference power rankings as other major conferences stumbled.

The SEC went 8-1 in non-conference games in Week 3 with it only loss being Tennessee at at No. 4 Oklahoma. The SEC is now 27-2 in non-conference games with an average margin of victory of 27.6 points per game.

Even more amazing is that the SEC West is 18-0 against every other team not in the SEC West.

Big Ten vs Other Conferences
Non-Conference Play This Season

The SEC now has 10 of the top 25 teams in the Football Power Index; the Big 12, ACC and Big Ten have a combined seven teams in the FPI top 25.

The ACC had an up-and-down week, but ultimately losses by Virginia Tech and Louisville hurt the conference in the power rankings. The issue for the ACC is that it has one or two top teams, but there is a big drop off after that.

After Virginia Tech upset Ohio State in Week 2 and Louisville looked strong in its first two wins, there was a perception that the middle of the conference was catching up to the top. But losses by those two teams on Saturday dropped them out of the AP Top 25, leaving just two ACC teams ranked in the poll.

The Big Ten’s struggles continued in Week 3, as its teams lost all five of its games against Power Five opponents. The Big Ten has lost its last 10 games against non-Big Ten Power Five teams, including losses to West Virginia (by Maryland), Iowa State (by Iowa), TCU (by Minnesota), Washington (by Illinois) and Notre Dame (by Purdue) on Saturday.

The only conference with a worse record in non-conference games against Power Five opponents than the Big Ten is Conference USA, who is 0-16 in such games.

The Big 12 is gaining ground on the Pac-12 for the second-best conference in the FBS. This season the Big 12 is winning with defense, with four of the top eight teams in ESPN’s defensive efficiency metric. Baylor and Oklahoma are looking like national title contenders, and the middle-tier teams of the conference – Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU and West Virginia – are all off to strong starts.

Six Big 12 teams have byes in Week 4, but the conference will have a chance to make a statement on a national stage as Kansas State hosts Auburn on Thursday (7:30 ET, ESPN). Other enticing non-conference Week 4 games include: Utah at Michigan (3:30 ET, ABC/ESPN2), Indiana at Missouri (4 ET, SEC Network) and Miami (FL) at Nebraska (8 ET, ESPN 2).

The conference power rankings are a formula that equally weighs the rankings from the AP Poll and ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) in order to determine the best and worst conferences in the country. For more information on the rankings and FPI, click here and here.

ESPN Stats & Information Conference Power Rankings

Jonathan McDonald and Jason Starrett also contributed to this post