Blowing up College Football (Part 3)

So, we've established a tournament and reorganized all of the conferences. What's next? Well, we had to figure out who would win, of course, so we went to whatifsports' NCAA matchup simulator and proceeded to barrel through the entire season. Between Steve and I, we simulated 540 regular season games, splitting the conferences between us. we set the schedule like this, using the first team and conference as an example. In New England, we had listed Boston College first, we played all their games first, by playing the next team on the list (UCONN) as a road game. The next game was a home team, then away and so on until we were done. Then we went to UCONN and did the same thing until the schedule was complete. Since we just came up with these conferences with no idea how it would work itself out in the end, and really having no idea that we were ever going to freaking simulate 540 games, there was no intent to give any teams in particular an advantage. So heres how the conferences all worked themselves out. (Steve's edit: Check out the new format)
Before I move on to the next batch of conferences, let me make a couple of comments on these. In New England, I was surprised by two things. First, how well Buffalo did, and second how poorly Penn State did. I really thought they would compete. BC beat Rutgers (and lost to Maryland) head to head to get the top spot.
The three way tie in the Appalachian was settled via real life overall records, since all three teams beat each other. West Virginia and Virginia Tech tied again, but Virginia Tech won their matchup in Morgantown to give them the conference title.
In the Great Lakes, I found it terrible amusing that Michigan only got third, even in a simulation, and Western Michigan snared second place.
And if anything alleges SEC bias in Tennessee's 6-3 record, they should know that the Vols dropped all three games at home, so there was no scheduling bias there. Just a tough break.
One last thing I should mention that I left out of the last post (if you can believe I left anything out). Wouldn't it be fun if placement in your conference also dictated some of your non-conference games for the next year as well? For example, what if all of the 2nd place teams of a 4 conference "pod" played each other, much like they do in the NFL. Since berths in the tournament are based exclusively on conference play, these non-conference games would simply be good match ups, and would, down the road, help with seeding and rankings. Lets keep this pod idea in mind with these 4 conference sets I'm putting up and look at potential match ups for next year. Of this "pod" the fourth place set seems the most intriguing, featuring Penn State, Pitt, Michigan State and North Carolina State. But it's time for more rankings.

Let me start by saying that again, there was no rigging of these standings. Whatif legitimately had Purdue winning the Midwest conference. I think it's funny that Notre Dame was the worst school in Indiana. Additionally, that 5 team tie for second was a blast trying to sort out.
Somehow in the Florida conference, Tulane and Southern Miss got the second and third spots. For all the big bad teams in Florida, the Gators sure had an easy time of it. I was surprised.
The Great Plains was a fierce battle at top, but Oklahoma made things easy by running the table. I was fairly surprised that Arkansas didn't dent the top 5.
The most SEC rich conference, Dixie, was won by Auburn (note that Georgia and Alabama got 4th and 5th), and two ACC teams nabbed second and third. A Sun Belt conference team finished ahead of three SEC teams! Very interesting indeed.
The most interesting set out of this pod is by far the 6th place set. Illinois, Florida State, Arkansas and poor Louisiana Monroe. Can you imagine any of those teams making the trip to Monroe? Kansas-Clemson would be pretty good as well. Notre Dame and Nebraska, down at the bottom of their conferences, would play each other, and other similarly talented schools like Troy and Ole Miss. Wonderful.

The best part about this is that it takes into account that LSU isn't very good away from Louisiana. They lost at Texas to a mediocre Texas team and gave up a chance in the tournament. The rest of the conference was atrocious, with TCU being the only team to really pur up much of a fight. Texas' loss came to Louisiana Tech, of all schools.
The Mountain West. Wyoming. Yep. Also amusing, Baylor's continued ineptitude in another, significantly less talented conference.
In the Great Basin, we had another surprise, as Oregon State pulled off the conference championship. The Beavers weren't as bad as I had thought though, according to RPI. Additionally, Boise State could turn into the next Nebraska in this conference, a big time program in the middle of nowhere.
In the California conference, Steve and I were really hoping for a big USC victory, especially after the previous two. Well, going into the last game simmed, Hawaii looked to be in control, haven won in LA against the Trojans. They were playing at home against Arizona, and incredibly dropped the gam, giving them their second loss. This could definitely be a fun conference pretty much every year.
The best set for the next season from this pod would be the second place set. Texas Tech against Hawaii could net about 200 points. Per half.

Ok, so we have all the conferences sorted out. Then we set to creating the tournament. First we had to seed, which we did first by record, then by final BCS ranking. The seeds sorted out like this : 1 Ohio State 2 Oklahoma 3 Auburn 4 Wake Forest 5 Virginia Tech 6 USC 7 Florida 8 Boston College 9 Texas 10 Oregon State 11 Purdue 12 Wyoming. Without further ado, here are the results of the simulated games.
In the first round, Boston College defeated Texas 23-13, thanks in large part to the hands of Justin Jarvis. Virginia Tech demolished Wyoming, 34-3, surprising nobody. USC and Purdue had a better game than I would have thought, with the Trojans winning 29-10. Florida was the first upset victim thanks to Yvenson Bernard and Oregon State, 17-10.
The second round, surprisingly, saw more blowouts. Ohio State dismantled Boston College 47-3. Virginia tech and Branden Ore nipped Wake Forest 26-12, giving the Deacs their first and only loss of the season. USC shut out Auburn 27-0. The SEC, by the way, went 0-2 in the tournament. Oklahoma trounced Oregon State as Allen Patrick ran for nearly 200 yards. The score was 42-17.
The final four saw Ohio State winning easily over Virginia Tech, 31-13. Beanie Wells scored a couple touchdowns. John David Booty led the Trojans to the championship game over Oklahoma, 41-34.
So there you have it. The two teams, on paper, that should have been in the title game. Ohio State and USC. It was a pretty good game. It turns out Ohio State is a much better team when not playing the national title in their opponent's home state. They won the Victoria Times national championship 27-13 over Southern Cal. Jim Tressel couldn't be happier.


If you read through all of this, you get a healthy pat on the back. I suspect reading it all is as much work as writing everything up. We'll be back with shorter posts starting tomorrow. Let me know what you thought of all of this in the comments!