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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 2291017, member: 289"] I love conference challenges, although I think they should be on the same day or weekend so they don’t seem like just another game, (How about a trophy?). I’d like to see an ACC-SEC challenge in football each season. We had a hint of what that might be like this past weekend with Alabama-Florida State, Tennessee- Georgia Tech and South Carolina-N. C. State, all ACC loses but all good games. This challenge would be full of southern teams with rabid fan bases and great football traditions who fight for recruits. Both originated from the same source- the old Southern Conference: [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Conference"]Southern Conference - Wikipedia[/URL] The ACC has long wanted to challenge the SEC and they are finally doing it and an annual challenge match would be a fascinating event. I decided to try to see what it would look like this year. Both conferences have 14 teams. We need a way to objectively rate them. I decided to look at the Sagarin ratings. I used last year’s ratings, even though the teams aren’t necessarily going to be the same the next year we don’t know how good they will be this year, either. Last year’s rankings are based on an entire season. Preseason ratings are based on speculation. And the strength of college football programs doesn’t vary that much from year to year. [URL="https://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaaf/sagarin/2016/team/"]NCAAF Sagarin - NCAAF Football - USA TODAY[/URL] Anyway, here are the match-ups with last year’s Sagarin rating next to the team. Let’s say the team with the higher rating gets to host the game. Alabama (2) at Clemson (1) Florida State (8) at Louisiana State (7) Florida (14) at U of Miami (12) Auburn (17) at Virginia Tech (15) Louisville (22) at Tennessee (20) Texas A&M (30) at Georgia Tech (23) Georgia (38) at North Carolina State (24) Arkansas (46) at North Carolina (31) Mississippi State (47) at Pittsburgh (39) Mississippi (57) at Wake Forest (48) Kentucky (65) at Boston College (62) Duke (79) at Vanderbilt (66) Syracuse (83) at Missouri (80) Virginia (107) at South Carolina (81) That’s 9 home games for the ACC, so maybe that’s not quite the way to do it, (but it was earned, after a fashion, by how well the teams did the year before). I’d prefer home games to neutral sites. The total of the ratings if you add them up, is 544, (average: 39) for the SEC and 554, (average: 40) for the ACC, so the teams and conferences would appear to be well-matched. I think it would be a great way to start off the season. [/QUOTE]

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