Top College Football Bowl Conference

Most readers of SECSportsFan.com agree that college football is the greatest sport in the world.

And the culmination of the college football season is the bowl season. The bowl season is the time when most major college football teams (with winning records) get to play in bowl games.

The better a team does during the season; the better their bowl (generally).

The bowl games are the highlight of the year for players, fans, and coaches alike. If you are lucky, hopefully you get to travel to a warm, sunny place, in late December or early January, to play the game.

These games are big pay days for the teams that go (and the athletic departments and conferences they represent).

Click this link for the 2009-2010 College Football Bowl Game Schedule.

Given the importance of bowl games, a logical question is – which conference has the most all-time college football bowl victories?

Good question. And, we have the answer.

You will probably not be surprised to find that – the Southeastern Conference (SEC) has the top college football bowl record.

So, here is the bowl game record (through 2008-2009) of the major college football conferences (based on historical conference affiliation). The first number is total bowl games. The second is wins; third is losses; fourth is ties; fifth is bowl game win percentage.

	Bowls	Wins	Losses	Ties	Win %
SEC	348	190	149	9	.559
Pac-10	193	103	88	2	.539
Big Ten	209	97	111	1	.467
ACC	166	81	83	2	.494
Big 8	127	63	63	1	.500
Southwest	151	63	80	8	.444
Big 12	92	45	47	0	.489
Big East	76	42	34	0	.553
WAC	101	42	58	1	.421

As you can see from the chart, the SEC basically dominates the field as the #1 all-time top bowl conference. The Southeastern Conference has more bowl wins and a higher winning percentage than anyone else. And, it really isn't even close.

To get the above numbers, we used a great calculator at Sports Link Network. It includes the bowl records of conferences by historical conference membership. So, it only counts a bowl result if the team was in the conference at the time of the bowl game.

Seems to make sense. But, surprisingly, this stat is seldom used. The more common stat (you'll get from the NCAA) is based on current conference affiliation. So, for instance, the ACC would get credit for all of Miami and Va. Tech's bowl wins -- even when they were in the Big East. Crazy.

Even if you do it that way, the SEC still comes out on top. Just not by quite as much.

Here's the chart for Top College Football Bowl Conference based on current conference affiliation.

	Bowls	Wins	Losses	Ties	Win %
SEC	366	188	166	12	.530
Pac-10	208	110	95	3	.529
Big Ten	238	114	121	3	.485
ACC	283	144	134	5	.518
Big 12	318	152	162	4	.484
Big East	108	52	54	2	.491
WAC	67	34	31	2	.522

You can see that when we look at "current conference affiliation" the ACC and Pac-10 do better. The ACC, for instance, picks up the great Miami, Florida State and Virginia Tech numbers -- which the Big East loses (thus Big East numbers go down). But, in any event, no one's win percentage in all-time bowl games exceeds the SEC (except the WAC) and no one comes close in number of bowl victories. So, the SEC is still the #1 college bowl conference -- no matter how you look at it.

NUMEROUS Big Ten fans have posted on this site about the fact that apparently the Big Ten only allowed one team to play in a bowl game up until 1976. The Big Ten Champ played in the Rose Bowl; everyone else went home. So, obviously, this would severely restrict the number of Big Ten teams that went to bowl games during those years. Of course there were far fewer bowls back then; still, it's a valid point worth mentioning.

But, however you slice it -- them's the numbers and the SEC is still #1!

But what about the college football conference bowl record for the just passed 2008 - 2009 bowl season? Here it is:

Pac-10: 5-0

SEC: 6-2

Big 12: 4-3

Big East: 4-2

ACC: 2-6

Big Ten: 1-6

WAC: 1-4

Mountain West: 3-2

Sun Belt: 1-1

WAC: 1-4

Obviously the Pac-10's performance (on the upside) is notable; as is the Big Ten's (on the downside -- again); and the ACC's (moved the ACC all-time bowl record from above .500 to below). And, I note the SEC did just fine (including Florida winning it all -- 3rd straight BCS Championship for the SEC) -- despite all the talk about it being a down year for the SEC.

Ok, How bout last year's (2007-2008) bowl season?

Here you go:

SEC: 7-2

Pac-10: 4-2

Big 12: 5-3

Big East: 3-2

Big Ten: 3-5

ACC: 2-6

WAC: 1-3

*Mountain West: 4-1 (great job by the MWC, but they simply didn't play in any major bowls or face the tough competition the other conferences faced).

Sun Belt: 1-0 (Florida Atlantic won the New Orleans Bowl against Memphis)

You can see that the SEC finished the 2007-2008 Bowl Season as the top college football bowl conference. It set an all-time record with 7 bowl victories in one season.

The SEC also further established itself as the Top All-Time NCAA College Football National Championship Conference.

How about all-time head to head SEC vs Other Conferences in bowl games?

Here you go (historical affiliation):

	SEC Wins vs.	SEC Losses vs.	Ties	SEC Win %
ACC	31	13	0	.705
Big Ten	34	21	0	.618
Big 12	15	9	0	.625
Southwest	32	26	3	.549
Pac-10	7	7	1	.500
Big East	6	6	0	.500
Big 8	13	19	1	.409
WAC	5	3	0	.625

So, head-to-head, all-time Conference vs Conference CFB bowl games -- the SEC beats every conference but three. And, two of those (Pac-10 and Big East) the SEC Ties. The only conference the SEC has lost more bowl games than one against is the Big-8 which doesn't exist any more.

How about SEC vs Other Conferences in bowl match-ups -- using current conference affiliation? Here you go:

	SEC Wins vs.	SEC Losses vs.	Ties	SEC Win %
ACC	43	27	2	.611
Big Ten	38	26	0	.594
Big 12	41	48	3	.462
Pac-10	9	8	2	.526
Big East	6	12	1	.342
WAC	1	0	0	1.000

Well, SEC haters -- you finally have some stats to back you up. Based on current conference affiliation, the Big 12 and Big East both beat the SEC in all-time head to head bowl game match-ups.

But, all in all, when looking at all the stats on this page (and we cover them all) -- we surely have settled that the SEC is clearly the top college football bowl conference. Right?

To compare the head to head records (in all games) of the SEC vs the major college football conferences (and the Ivy League), check out:

SEC vs Big Ten Football

SEC vs Big 12 Football

SEC vs ACC Football

SEC vs Big East Football

SEC vs Pac-10 Football

SEC vs Ivy League Football

What do you think?

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