Are you wondering what are the best conferences in college football? Or maybe you are hearing about conferences for the first time? In any case, this article will answer all your doubts. If you’re an avid follower of the game or a newbie trying to understand the complexities of college football, we have compiled a list of the best conference in college football that shall give you the idea of how and what these conferences are, the teams in them, and how did their last season go.

College football teams in the United States field the majority of their games against teams from their own conference. The Big Ten, Pac-12, SEC (Southeastern Conference), ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference), Big 12, and others are the most well-known Division I FBS college football conferences. More than 60% of the players on NFL rosters come from these conferences. Another important fact about these conferences is that not all football teams play in a conference. The football independents are led by Navy, Brigham Young, and Notre Dame. Because of their strong football traditions, these schools have no problems scheduling games.

To know more about these conferences and how they have scaled last season, read on below and enrich yourself with all the information. Happy reading!

Southeastern Conference

For three factors, the SEC remains the top conference in this list’s conference power rankings. For starters, they have four teams in the top eight. Two, maybe three teams also have a chance to qualify for the playoffs. Three, the SEC is home to the nation’s No. 1 team, the Alabama Crimson Tide. Four SEC teams are expected to be invited to the New Year’s Six bowl game. The No. 5 Texas A&M Aggies, the No. 6 Florida Gators, and the No. 8 Georgia Bulldogs follow No. 1 Alabama. As a one-loss at-large team, Texas A&M can make the playoffs, while Florida can qualify as a one-loss Power 5 champion. This season, none of these four teams will have more than two regular-season defeats. The fact that Georgia is the SEC’s fourth-best team says a lot about the conference.

Atlantic Coast Conference

The ACC, more than any other Power 5 conference, has the best chance of bringing two teams into the four-team field. It’s impossible to forget the Atlantic Coast Conference’s 0-6 bowl record. Yes, Notre Dame’s temporary loyalty brought two teams into the playoff, but all were eliminated in a decisive fashion. With such a large distance between the top few teams in the league and the rest of the field, no one gained more from conference-heavy scheduling in terms of national perception. During bowl season, this becomes much more apparent. Miami is ranked 10th, while North Carolina is ranked 17th. With an 8-3 record, NC State could be the best-unranked team in the nation, while Boston College, Virginia, and Wake Forest are all above .500.

Big Ten Conference

No. 4 Ohio State is clearly the best team in the conference, while No. 12 Indiana is the runner-up. Northwestern holds the No. 3 spots after victories over Wisconsin and Iowa. After that, it’s up to the dealer to decide. In the conference, there are ten teams with two wins and records ranging from 2-2 to 2-5. Despite Penn State and Michigan’s disastrous seasons, as well as a worse-than-expected Wisconsin team, the Big Ten is still ranked third. Some of that has to do with Ohio State’s convincing Sugar Bowl victory over Clemson, but it also has to do with the fact that it has a team in the championship game.

Big Twelve Conference

Iowa State and Oklahoma have established themselves as the conference’s top two teams. Texas is in third place after defeating an Oklahoma State team that lost to TCU on Saturday. And, in typical Big 12 fashion, the conference’s middle is fairly interchangeable until you get to a Kansas team that has surrendered 414 points in nine games. The Big 12 has the same number of ranking teams as the Pac-12, and all three teams are ranked ahead of the Pac-12’s top-25 trio, despite being the least likely Power 5 conference to send a single team into the postseason. Even better, two of them are in the top ten, and all three are in the top fifteen.

Pac-12 Conference

While the Pac-12 is still mathematically ineligible for the playoffs, the fact that only three of its teams are ranked in the top 25 in the new playoff rankings does not bode well for West Coast football. Despite the addition of the No. 22 Washington Huskies to the Pac-12, the No. 20 USC Trojans had a game cancelled, and the Oregon Ducks lost, dropping to No. 23 overall. Its mediocrity was secured when 5-0 USC lost in the conference championship game to the same Oregon team, ensuring that the playoff committee will have no unbeaten Pac-12 team to consider. With sophomore standout Kedon Slovis at quarterback and a strong defence led by All-American safety Talanoa Hufanga, the Trojans might as well have made a national splash in a complete season’s worth of games.

Sun Belt

The Sun Belt Conference has had quite a year. No Sun Belt team had ever soared higher than No. 19 in the AP poll before the 2020 season, and that distinction went to the 2019 Appalachian State team, which ended 13-1. Louisiana started the year with a shocking upset at No. 23 Iowa State in Ames, then matched Appalachian State by joining the AP poll at No. 19 the next week. The Sun Belt is the Group of Five’s second-best conference. Appalachian State is 7-3, Georgia Southern is 7-4, and both Coastal and Louisiana are ranked. Georgia State and Troy have five wins each.

American Athletic Conference

Tulsa and Cincinnati are legitimate, and UCF has scored nearly 400 points in nine games. SMU, Memphis, and Tulane have all won at least six games this season. If Cincinnati had ended the season unbeaten and the conference as a whole had performed well in bowl season, the AAC would have been the clear favourite of Group of Five conferences. The AAC still has more important teams than any other Group of Five conferences, but its weak bowl performance has dropped it to seventh place in these rankings.

Mid-American Conference

Ball State and Buffalo were the only MAC teams to play nonconference games, and they ended up meeting in the conference championship game after the Cardinals upset Western Michigan in the regular-season finale. Both teams defeated quality rivals in bowl games, with Ball State giving San Jose State the first loss of the season and Buffalo defeating Marshall. This was a thin conference outside of Ball State, Buffalo, and a strong Western Michigan team, but its bowl wins over perhaps the best team in Conference USA and the Mountain West were enough to propel it to the No. 8 slots.

Mountain West Conference

If it weren’t for the Sun Belt’s outstanding season, the Mountain West would be ranked second among the G5 conferences. San Jose State, Boise State, and Nevada are battling for the conference lead, and San Diego State did not get blown out by unbeaten Colorado in a hastily orchestrated contest. In this conference, the Spartans were the story of the season. Ball State ruined their unbeaten season in the Arizona Bowl when they turned the ball over four times and lost 34-13, but it was still an outstanding season. Nevada (38-27 victory over Tulane) and Hawaii (28-14 victory over Houston) each claimed their bowl games, giving the conference a winning record in the bowl season.

Conference USA

Before the wheels dropped off down the stretch, the Marshall Thundering Herd had a magical season. They rose all the way to No. 15 in the AP poll after a 7-0 start that included a victory over then-No. 23 Appalachian State in the second game of the season, before being shut out 20-0 by Rice in one of the year’s greatest upsets. UTSA and Florida Atlantic were the only two teams in the conference with winning records overall, apart from Marshall and UAB. Its 0-6 record in bowl games accurately reflects how Conference USA fared against the rest of the nation.