Look, full disclosure, I'm an LSU fan/grad who did not grow up in the south, but I defend it a great deal. I'm not referring to any specific instance, but more how people think. I know of the various formulas, etc, but largely I think perception is more of what matters. Particularly in football where there is relatively so little cross over and team x plays roughly 10% of FBS teams. It's a very small sample size.

Look at 2011, every formula ranked the Big12 better than SEC, but it's champ was left out for a divisional runner up. We don't need to rehash, but conference perception is pretty important when it comes to selection in a most sports.

Now, talent, I agree. But how is it measured objectively? Recruiting rankings? NFL draft picks? You can't measure those in the season. It's like the supreme court's definition of porn--you know it when you see it.

There's no right answer here, and I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm just curious how yall measure it, and not just football.

Take Sagarin, his conference rankings are based on a formula of "central mean", simple average, and this win 50%

quote:
There are three group ratings, the "central mean", the
"simple average" (also known as the "arithmetic mean",)
and the WIN50%.
The "central mean" gives the most weight to the middle team(s)
in the group and progressively less weight to teams as you go
away from the middle in either direction, up or down.
This tends to smooth out the effect of anomalous teams that are rated
much higher and lower than the middle team(s) in the group. The
"simple average" ("arithmetic mean") weights each team equally
no matter where they are relative to the middle.
Here are a few examples of how the "central mean" is computed.
4-team group ___ the weights are 1-2-2-1

Obviously this is a respected formula, but it's all kind of arbitrary. So what do you look at?

What is the best baseball conference this year? Big 12 or SEC and why?

What about basketball? Big 10? They had 3 sweet 16 teams and 1 final four. The sec had 3/16 also and 2 Final Four teams. Few will argue SEC>Big10.