College Football News Spring Preview 2006

[MeanGreen61]

Spring ball has already begun with North Texas kicking off its off-season sessions on February 13th and with Texas, Auburn and UCLA starting soon. Here are twenty questions heading into this important time to keep you going during this brutally painful time before March Madness. (Questions 13-7 coming Thursday, 6-1 on Friday.)

14. Which conference will be the best in 2006?

11. Sun Belt - It'll once again be one of college football's most interesting races all eight teams having a shot. 2005 newcomers FIU and Florida Atlantic should be better, while North Texas will find its groove again after struggling with its offense last year. The best team should be ... UL Lafayette

10. MAC - The star power isn't there with the loss of Bowling Green QB Omar Jacobs and Toledo QB Bruce Gradkowski, but NIU's Garrett Wolfe will be among the nation's rushing leaders. The division races should be fun with Ball State and Western Michigan sure to challenge NIU and Toledo in the West and Ohio sure to be better in the East. The best team should be ... Northern Illinois

9. WAC - It's a top-heavy league with Boise State, Fresno State, Hawaii and Nevada good enough to hang around with anyone in America, but the bottom is really bad. Even so, New Mexico State and Utah State can't be worse while San Jose State has the potential to be much better. The best team should be ... Nevada

8. Conference USA - This is potentially the most even league in the country. Remember that UCF was coming off a winless season and still came this close to winning the title. If that can happen, then SMU and Tulane should have a ray of hope. Fine, so Rice won't pull a UCF, but the other 11 teams should wage a fierce war with a few upsets over BCS teams sure to happen. The best team should be ... UCF

7. Mountain West - All talk of being better than the Big East should be put to rest after this year, but this is still a solid league with TCU, Utah and BYU as good as any mid-level BCS conference team and New Mexico, San Diego State, Colorado State and Wyoming sure to be competitive. Air Force and UNLV should be better. The best team should be ... TCU

6. Big East -

5. Big 12 -

4. Big Ten -

3. ACC -

2. Pac 10 -

1. SEC -

FULL ARTICLE

http://www.collegefootballnews.com/2006/Sp...tions_20_14.htm

[bigrobdsp]

how can the pac 10 be #2 with only 1 competitive team? they are only 1 tic ahead of the big east in my opinion.

[GreenBat]

how can the pac 10 be #2 with only 1 competitive team? they are only 1 tic ahead of the big east in my opinion.

Only one competive team? The pac 10 played in as many bowls this past year than the SunBelt has sponsored. It won 3-5.

Pioneer PureVision Las Vegas Bowl

California - 35

Brigham Young - 28

Insight Bowl

Arizona State - 45

Rutgers - 40

Pacific Life Holiday Bowl

Oklahoma - 17

Oregon - 14

Vitalis Sun Bowl

UCLA - 50

Northwestern - 38

Rose Bowl, National Championship

Texas - 41

Southern Cal - 38

[pollock]

PAC 10 doesn't get much respect around here because we don't get to see many of the games. ABC will broadcast Missouri v. Iowa State here before they'll show the PAC 10. But there are some pretty damn good teams besides USC.... Oregon and UCLA to name two, and Cal last year.

[Eagle1855]

PAC 10 doesn't get much respect around here because we don't get to see many of the games.  ABC will broadcast Missouri v. Iowa State here before they'll show the PAC 10.  But there are some pretty damn good teams besides USC.... Oregon and UCLA to name two, and Cal last year.

←

agreed. But Texas beat USC, USC beat OU, OU beat U of O, UCLA beat OU, Tech beat Cal... its hard to make the case that the Pac 10 is a better conference than the big 12. In fact, I think its stupid to even compare the top 5 conferences, as most conferences have teams that could play with anyone on any given saturday.

Also, the "overrated" big 12 went 5-3 in their bowl games (2 wins coming against the best teams in the Pac 10)

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

---That is the problem with western conferences, the PAC-10 and WAC.... they play after other have finished or even late on Saturday night. Another good reason to stay away from the WAC.... bad time zones and therefore not much national exposure and often their games finish after Eastern and Central newspaper press times and they don't even make the 10 o'clock sports news...... besides they are too spread out and have a lot of expensive travel.

Edited February 17, 2006 by SCREAMING EAGLE-66