A Memo to Orin Hatch

After every BYU-Oklahoma, Utah victory, or Boise State bowl game, some self aggrandizing senator holds hearings to determine if the BCS is a monopoly (it is) and if their local team should be allowed in. I thought I'd look at this from a talent view point. How much NFL talent is in the lesser leagues?  Should the Big Easyt even be a BCS conference?

2008 NFL Players by Conference Affiliation (ESPN.com data)

Position	Conf. USA	MAC	MWC	Big East	Pac 10
CB	4	8	6	24	18
DE	0	4	9	11	18
DT	4	6	4	11	18
K	1	0	0	2	5
LB	3	4	13	28	31
OC	8	4	2	4	13
OT	5	12	14	9	16
P	2	3	0	3	5
QB	6	5	5	10	19
RB	7	4	6	9	18
S	1	2	4	9	25
TE	4	4	3	11	18
WR	10	11	14	16	31
Grand Total	55	67	80	147	235

So the Big East has 83% more NFL talent than the MWC (the best non-BCS conference). The Pac 10 has 60% more talent than the Big East. The bottom line: you have to draw the line somewhere. You could argue that the Big Easy should be dropped; you could also argue the MWC should be added. Of course, it'd be hard to add the MWC without making a push for the MAC as well. I have a hard time thinking the Motor City Little Caesar's Bowl participant would shine in the Fiesta Bowl.

As I've been saying, the better indication of NFL talent is production, not roster inclusion. To that end, I'll look at offensive and defensive stats by lower tier conferences:

2008 DL/LB combined Statistics by Conference (lower tier)

Conference	Tackles	Sacks
Big East	814	51.5
Pac 10	1214	50.5
MAC	240	38.5
MWC	598	28
Conference USA	79	4

Big East clearly better than the rest of the riff raff

2008 DB combined Statistics by Conference (lower tier)

Conference	PBU	Int	Tackles
Pac 10	171	44	935
Big East	80	18	435
Conference USA	48	11	171
MAC	14	3	156
MWC	13	2	296

Conf USA may be upset here, but the MWC not so much…

2008 WR combined Statistics by Conference (lower tier)

Conference	Yards	TDs
Pac 10	4818	24
Big East	4100	28
MAC	4078	31
MWC	2948	14
Conf USA	3015	25

Supports the thesis that offensive skill is more evenly distributed than defensive.

2008 RB combined Statistics by Conference (lower tier)

Conference	Yards	TDs
Big 10	3849	38
Big East	2530	13
MAC	2350	23
MWC	61	0
Conf USA	4925	42

2007 QB Statistics by Conference (lower tier)

Conference	Yards	TDs
Conf USA	11188	69
Big East	6795	40
Big 12	4445	26
MAC	3516	34
MWC	559	1

Add Marshall to the MAC?

Conclusion: The MWC wins a few games but has nowhere near BCS talent. You could argue that this is causal (i.e. add the MWC to the BCS and talent will improve), but I don't see it. Any of these lesser conferences could claim to be as talented as the MWC. If we look at the MWC recruiting base, I'm sure we could show that Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Nevada just aren't a big piece of the US population (which is why they're grabbing a bunch of second tier talent out of Texas and California).