Is a good win more important than a bad loss?

OK, I looked at strength of schedule as one component in evaluating who is – or maybe more accurately, who isn’t – worthy of a BCS title game berth this season.

Now I’ll turn to evaluation of the top 10 schools’ schedules in terms of the wins and losses. More specifically, I will tally each team’s good wins (defined as victories over bowl bound schools) against each school’s bad losses (defined as losses to schools that aren’t going to a bowl game, at least based on the latest projections). Then we’ll see if that adds anything to the analysis.

• Missouri. 4 good wins (Illinois, Texas A & M, Texas Tech, Kansas); 0 bad losses
• West Virginia. 5 good wins (East Carolina, Maryland, Mississippi State, Rutgers, Cincinnati, Connecticut); 1 bad loss (Pittsburgh)
• Ohio State. 5 good wins (Purdue, Michigan State, Penn State, Wisconsin, Michigan); 0 bad losses
• Georgia. 6 good wins (Oklahoma State, Alabama, Florida, Auburn, Kentucky, Georgia Tech); 1 bad loss (South Carolina)
• Kansas. 3 good wins (Central Michigan, Texas A & M, Oklahoma State); 0 bad losses
• Virginia Tech. 6 good wins (East Carolina, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Virginia, Boston College); 0 bad losses
• LSU. 6 good wins (Mississippi State, Virginia Tech, Florida, Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee); 0 bad losses
• Southern California. 4 good wins (Oregon State, California, Arizona State, UCLA); 1 bad loss (Stanford)
• Oklahoma. 6 good wins (Tulsa, Texas, Texas A & M, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Missouri); 0 bad losses
• Florida. 4 good wins (Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida Atlantic, Florida State); 0 bad losses

It’s pretty easy to weed out the bad resumes here. Kansas and Southern Cal have the weakest ledgers of the group. USC also has by far the worst loss on the board. Missouri, Florida and West Virginia are in the next group, the “meh” programs. The rest of the pack? Again, no other school has a showing here that by itself should disqualify them from appearing in a BCS title game this year.

One strange thing worth noting – you’d think with no unbeaten schools on this list, there would be several wins over BCS bound teams. In fact, there are only two: Missouri over Kansas and LSU over Virginia Tech (probably the most impressive win of the 2007 season).