Big 8 vs. SWC

T

Texas Jack

1,000+ Posts
I did this because I was bored and I believed that the Big 8 was a weaker conference from top to bottom, while on the other hand having 2 more dominant teams. What was the better conference, here are some stats.Big 8 vs. SWCI have the Records of the 5 best teams of each conference, other than OU and Texas, up to the year 1996. I am omitting OKSt. Colorado, Texas Tech, and Houston for their late entries into each conference but I am including their AP results while in conference.

Big 8:
KSt. 365-546
Kansas 496-469
Iowa St. 424-490
Mizzou 524-444
Nebraska 718-292

Total: 2527 – 2241
Winning % 52.3

SWC:
Arkansas 565-383
TCU 457-464
A&M 574-370
Baylor 486-421
SMU 398-380

Total: 2480 – 2018
Winning % 55.1

AP Finishes

Big 8:
AP top 10 – 43 top 10 AP poll finishes
AP top 20 – 83 top 20 AP poll finishes

Kansas
AP top 10 – 2
AP top 20 – 4

KSt.
AP top 10 – 1
AP top 20 – 4

Iowa St.
AP top 10 – 0
AP top 20 – 1

Mizzou
AP top 10 – 6
AP top 20 – 15

Nebraska
AP top 10 – 26
AP top 20 – 36

Colorado and OKSt.
AP top 10 – 8
AP top 20 - 23

SWC
AP top 10 – 47
AP top 20 - 105

Arkansas
AP top 10 – 12
AP top 20 – 25

TCU
AP top 10 – 3
AP top 20 – 8

A&M
AP top 10 – 11
AP top 20 – 20

Baylor
AP top 10 – 1
AP top 20 – 13

SMU
AP top 10 – 4
AP top 20 – 12

Rice, Houston and Tech
AP top 10 – 7
AP top 20 - 27

So the final numbers were 55.1 winning % for the SWC and a 52.3% for the Big 8.

The SWC had 105 AP top 20 finishes to 83 for the Big 8, an increase of 27%.
 
It's really an apple-and-orange comparison which all depends on the time frame at which you're looking.

60s and 70s, you're definitely going to find a stronger SWC. 80s, it's a close call, 90s there's no doubt that it's the Big 8.
 
I left out Texas and OU because my aim was to try to find out how though theses conferences were for theses two respective teams.

My main contention is that the SWC from 1930 - 1970 was a very dominant conference right up there with the SEC and Big 10.

The Big 8 from 1940 - 1960 was one of the weakest conferences in the country. The point is that OU won 17 conference championships in 20 years from 1943 - 1962, and it is my belief that the only conference they could have done that in was the Big 8, or the Big 6 as it was for many of those years.
 
My kid's 1988 Pop Warner team was better than the 2007 Dolphins. It's my belief that if I discount the fact that one team played in the NFL and the other team was made up of 9 year olds it a very valid comparison.
 
It's just my belief that the Big was one of the weakest in the country.

In that 20 year stretch Nebraska made the final AP poll once. There was no competition, and OU won the conference not because they were good but because they played.

From the beginning of the big 6 in 1928 to 1995 Iowa St., Kansas, Kansas St., Colorado, OKSt. have a combined 7 outright titles. That’s not a lot of competition, only 7 outright in 70 years by 5 teams???

When Nebraska was down, OU had a free ride to a Championship. That is mid-major conference it would appear.

It would be the same as BYU or North Texas bragging about their conference championships. It's an insult to brag about them to ppl in the SEC, SWC, and BIG 10. BYU has more championships that 11 time NC winner Alabama, do you see the lunacy in this?
 
...which means exactly squat when you're comparing two D-1 college football conferences.

Unless, of course, you're comparing the Big 8/6 to the Pop Warner team. Then I'd probably agree with you.
 
it is true are big 12 championships are for more coveted than those from the big 8. how can they not be? the same should be true for texas as well.

However, I would certainly say that year in year out Nebraska is head and shoulder above Arkansas (the SWC next best team). So while the SWC might have been better top to bottom, either Nebraska had to beat Oklahoma or Oklahoma had to beat Nebraska. That was significant every year.

When were these down years at Nebraska? Also, I would almost say 3% points is statistically insignificant.
 
Yes Nebraska is a nobody but A&M with ONE Championship in '39 is all that and more :/

If we dismiss all of OU's victories they have never won a game.
 
during the 22 yrs being discussed Neb was a non-factor. Don't be offended. Most every team you can name had a dry period. However, normally other teams will benefit become a team worthy. I'm sure Nebraska's recent downturn has enabled Mizz and Kan to step up. UT's struggles 20 yrs ago enabled A&m to be a major player nationally.(?) Who stepped up to challenge ou in those yrs? How many big8 schools finished top ten during that period. I believe thats all TexJack was saying...
 
Octavian said it best, but I just wanted to add what Wilkinson's record vs ranked teams was over that 11 year period:

22-6

This includes separate streaks of 10 & 11 straight wins over ranked teams.

OU played & beat a lot of good teams too.
 
During the 40's and 50's Nebraska was a losing football team.40 8-2 (5-0)
41 4-5 (3-2)
42 3-7 (3-2)
43 2-6 (2-3)
44 2-6 (2-3)
45 4-5 (2-3)
46 3-6 (3-2)
47 2-7 (2-3)
48 2-8 (2-4)
49 4-5 (3-3)
50 6-2-1 (4-2)
51 2-8 (2-4)
52 5-4-1 (3-2-1)
53 3-6-1 (2-4)
54 6-4 (4-2)
55 5-5 (5-1)
56 4-6 (3-3)
57 1-9 (1-5)
58 3-7 (1-5)
59 4-6 (2-4)

In the 1940's Nebraska was 34-57 overall, 27-25 in conference, 7-32 in non-conference games

In the 1950's Nebraska was 39-58-3 overall, 27-32-1 in conference, 12-25-2 in non-conference games

Nebraska had a winning record 4 times in those 20 years

Nebraska did not win a non-conference game 9 of those 20 years,

BTW, during this time Nebraska had four games against SWC competition. They were all home games for Nebraska.

51 TCU 7-28
55 A&M 0-27
56 Baylor 7-26
59 Texas 0-20

Yeah, Nebraska was tough competition for OU during the 40's and 50's, and the Big 6 was tougher than other conferences.
 
So basically the SWC was so good that it failed?

I didn't neglect Arkansas. Arguably the best team in the SWC is one of the weakest teams in the SEC. Everyone knows that.
 
Everyone also knows that since they stopped playing in the SWC, Arkansas' Texas pipeline dried up.

Let's see how OU does without any Texas players.
 
The Drake,

I just spent like 5 minutes going through some old Texas schedules, and here are some non-Texas teams they played between like '40 - '57:

Florida, Wisconsin, Indiana, Colorado, LSU, K State, Northwestern, Oregon, Missouri, N. Carolina, Purdue, Kentucky, Idaho, Temple, Notre Dame, USC, Georgia, South Carolina, West Virginia.

Many of those games were home and home. I know they are not all good teams and some were especially not good then, but it was obviously not just Texas kids vs. Texas kids every week.

By the way, there were all regular season games and does not include any bowl games.
 
I did some figuring. If you take the combined in-conference records of all the SWC teams, and compare that to the combined in-conference records of all the Big 8 teams, the winning percentages are:

SWC = .500
Big 8 = .500

Simply amazing.
 
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