Top College Football Bowl Conference

This page is about which conference is the top college football bowl conference -- all-time. But what about the college football conference bowl record in the most recent 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.

Ok, now back to the historical analysis (updated through the 2007-2008 bowl season).

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 did in the year; 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).

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 2007-2008) 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	340	184	147	9	.554
Pac-10	188	98	88	2	.527
Big Ten	202	96	105	1	.478
ACC	158	79	77	2	.506
Big 8	127	63	63	1	.500
Southwest	151	63	80	8	.444
Big 12	85	41	44	0	.482
Big East	70	38	32	0	.543
WAC	96	41	54	1	.432

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	358	182	164	12	.525
Pac-10	203	105	95	3	.525
Big Ten	231	113	115	3	.496
ACC	275	142	128	5	.525
Big 12	311	148	159	4	.482
Big East	102	48	52	2	.480
WAC	62	33	27	2	.548

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!

How about 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	29	13	0	.690
Big Ten	33	20	0	.623
Big 12	13	9	0	.591
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	41	27	2	.600
Big Ten	37	25	0	.597
Big 12	39	48	3	.450
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

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Nonbeliever Not rated yet
the percentage that you calculated is not the win %. What u calculated was the non-losing %. To calculate the win% you cannot exclude the ties as non-...

Another good job on Top College Football Bowl Conference page Not rated yet

"But the Miami, Virginia Tech and Boston College wins while they were in the Big East should be credited to the Big East."

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