The national media has tabbed Louisville as the preseason favorite in the Big East conference. To Cardinals fan this is a big deal. Charlie Strong has done a phenomenal job considering where the program was when he took over in 2010.
Although being the preseason favorite in a BCS conference usually would be a respectable accomplishment, when you consider the current reputation of the Big East, Louisville is still actually fighting for respect on a national level. Because the Big East is considered to be a weak league, many national media members think Louisville wouldn’t have much success in other BCS conferences.
College football guru Phil Steele published his initial preseason power ratings for each team and each conference. With these ratings, Steele takes last year’s final Plus/Minus ratings, which are calculated mostly by the score of each game last year and the strength of opponents played. He then takes his aforementioned Plus/Minus ratings and adds them to the totals. As I noted earlier this week, Phil Steele’s preseason publication has been the most accurate in college football for the past 14 years.
Here is a breakdown of where Louisville would rank if they were in any of the other BCS conferences.
There are six BCS conferences with an average of 11.3 teams per league. Louisville’s average rank among all the BCS leagues is 5th.
August 16, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Great Job Nick! While Louisville seems to fair pretty well in the other BCS conferences based on these rating, what people also need to understand is that these ratings were based on “last years” stats…Meaning that they represent we were only two years into the Strong era, at time when much of our team were inexperianced, and with two unexcusable losses to Marshall and FIU. I’ll be really interested to see these same tables following this years season!
August 16, 2012 at 2:51 pm
I can’t wait to see these standings next year.
August 21, 2012 at 8:13 am
Too bad ratings don’t win ball games!! Ranked way too high in SEC
August 29, 2012 at 3:16 pm
SUCCESS HAS JADED YOUR PERSPECTIVE. WE ARE A VERY GOOD TEAM WITH A VERY GOOD COACH WHO RECRUITS VERY WELL. GET OVER YOURSELVES SEC FANS. CONTRARY TO YOUR DISILLUSION, YOU DO NOT OWN COLLEGE FOOTBALL.
August 21, 2012 at 8:13 am
Too bad ratings don’t win ball games!! Ranked way too high in SEC