Bowl Grades by Conference: Ranking How Each League Fared

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9. Mountain West

It was up and down. Mountain West Champion Boise State didn't belong on the same LA Bowl field as Washington, UNLV stayed in the hotel in the loss to Ohio, and Utah State didn't get off the bus against a fired-up Washington State.

On the plus side, San Diego State gave it the old college try in a fight with North Texas, and New Mexico gave it everything against Minnesota. Hawaii pulled off a thriller against Cal, and Fresno State stopped Miami University cold.

Bowl Grade: C
Bowl Record: 2-5
ATS: 3-4


8. SEC

Ooooooof. The SEC got just as many wins against itself as it did against everyone else. It wasn't just that the conference kept losing over and over and over again, it was that ... yeah, it was that it kept losing over and over and over again.

For the third straight season, the SEC didn't get a team into the national championship, Alabama got destroyed by Indiana, Texas A&M lost at home to Miami, and ... Texas beat Michigan, and Ole Miss hit the two-foot putt against Tulane, so there's that.

Bowl Grade: C+
Bowl Record: 2-8
ATS: 2-8

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1. Big Ten

What more could you possibly want? Nebraska got rocked by Utah, but that was expected. USC collapsed late, but it had it against TCU. Everything else was strong with Illinois (Tennessee) and Iowa (Vanderbilt) making SEC teams sad, Washington rocking Mountain West champ Boise State, Penn State coming up strong against Clemson and ... Oh yeah, Indiana did something big - and Oregon's only loss after beating Sun Belt champ James Madison and shutting out Big 12 champ Texas Tech was to the Hoosiers.

Bowl Grade: A
Bowl Record: 10-4
ATS: 9-5

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