WAC ahead of MWC in final power rankings

The final ESPN.com conference power rankings are in. Drum roll please ...

The WAC finished at No. 5 and the Mountain West at No. 6, ahead of two automatic qualifying conferences in the ACC and Big East. It is no surprise the two non-AQs finished ahead of those two conferences. We saw plenty of head-to-head wins that showed that to be the case (Boise State over Virginia Tech; Utah over Pittsburgh; Air Force over Georgia Tech; Fresno State over Cincinnati).

Not only that, the Mountain West and WAC each had two ranked teams in the final polls; the Big East had zero. The two WAC teams (Boise State, Nevada) were ranked above the highest team from the ACC (Virginia Tech) in both polls as well.

As for the WAC finishing ahead of the Mountain West, the two leagues jockeyed back and forth all season. ESPN Stats & Information says Boise State's 26-3 win over Utah in the MAACO Bowl Las Vegas clinched its ranking ahead of the MWC. On first blush, I was surprised to see the WAC ahead for a few reasons:

The Mountain West went 4-1 in bowl play,�with two wins over AQ�opponents; the WAC was 2-2, with one win over an AQ opponent.

TCU finished No.�2 in the national rankings.

The Mountain West had four teams with nine wins or more; the WAC had three.

The Mountain West had five bowl teams; the WAC had four.

But a closer look reveals those three WAC teams had 10-plus wins; the Mountain West had two teams with 10-plus wins. Also, if you take a look at the teams�that finished with losing records (four in the MWC and five in the WAC), the winning percentage for the WAC teams was slightly higher (.290 for WAC; .184 for MWC).

Both conferences went 6-9 against teams from AQ conferences. But the bowl teams in the Mountain West went 6-3 in those games; bowl teams in the WAC went 6-1 in those games. Interestingly, five of those six wins in the Mountain West came against bowl teams, while only three of the six wins for the WAC came against bowl teams. Only one win for each league over an opponent that finished ranked in the final polls.

You can go back and forth with the stats, but the ultimate: the WAC went 9-4 head-to-head against the Mountain West -- including both games featuring a matchup of two bowl teams (Boise State over Utah; Nevada over BYU). The WAC also had one win featuring a losing team over a bowl team (Utah State over BYU). And in three games featuring matchups between losing teams, the WAC went 2-1 (New Mexico State over New Mexico; Idaho over UNLV).

So given all that, you can understand how the WAC finished ahead of the Mountain West. Of course, that is not going to last for long. Four WAC teams are set to join the Mountain West by the 2012 season.

Source: http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/38418/wac-ahead-of-mwc-in-final-power-rankings

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