Over the past several months there have been a lot of threads and posts that either directly or indirectly referenced the Missouri Valley Football Conference. During several of these references the descriptors used for the conference usually used some adjective describing the conference as the "toughest", or the "best", or the "premier" football conference in FCS/IAA. This has been no more evident than during the recent trials and tribulations of our beloved Bison as they wade through their first year in the MVFC. Many fans attribute the current record to the toughness of the MVFC.

There can be no doubt that the MVFC is, indeed, "tougher" than the Bison's former conference, the Great West. But is the MVFC the toughest, best much less the premier FCS football conference? Since most of these comments were nothing more than opinion, I decided to look for statistics that would attempt to determine which of the football conferences was the best.

There are probably a number of ways to do this but I decided to compare the MVFC (Gateway) to the Colonial (Atlantic 10), Southern and Big Sky conferences. I consider these four football conferences to be 'premier' football conferences because they have won the FCS/IAA football championship 14 times out of the last 15 years. So, I ignored all other conferences.

I decided to examine the number of playoff appearances each team from that conference made, the number of wins each conferences teams garnered, the number of times each conference had a member in the championship game and the number of championships won by a conference member. I examined the playoffs for each year of the last 15 years, from 1993-2007. The data are here if anyone wants to check the stats:

http://www.fcspreview.com/history.html

Because I went back 15 years, I also included such teams as Idaho and Boise State for the Big Sky and Western Kentucky for the MVFC despite the fact they are no longer members of the conference. I did this because these teams would have contributed to the "toughness" of the conference schedule. Here is what I learned:

Number of Championship Appearances/Number of Wins in the Playoffs

Colonial teams have made the playoffs 35 times during this period and have notched 40 wins. The Southern conference has sent 32 teams to the playoffs and has notched 46 wins. MVFC has sent 29 teams to the playoffs and has notched 44 wins while the Big Sky has sent 30 teams notching 32 wins.

My interpretation: Among these three conferences the MVFC is no better than third in ranking. The Colonial and Southern conferences have sent more teams and all have about the same number of victories. The Big Sky and MVFC have sent about the same number of teams but clearly the MVFC has done better than the Big Sky when competing against these better teams.

Championship Game Appearances and Championships

The Colonial conference has sent five teams to the championship game and has won 3 championships. The Southern conference has sent six teams to the championship game winning five championships. The MVFC has sent five teams to the championship game, winning four times. The Big Sky has sent 6 teams to the championship game winning twice.

My interpretation: Clearly the Southern conference is the premier conference when it comes to getting teams to the championship game and winning it. That's what happens when you have Appalachian State and Georgia Southern in the same conference. The Colonial and MVFC are basically tied for second in this category with a slight edge going to the MVFC with one more championship, however in this period two of those went to a former member that is now FBS, Western Kentucky. The Big Sky has been quite successful in getting teams to the big dance buy Montana has managed just two victories despite all those appearances.

My overall impression after looking at the data is that the MVFC is not the toughest, best or premier FCS/IAA football conference, at least not during the last 15 years. The Southern conference is clearly the premier football conference and the the MVFC is probably no better than third, given the prowess of the Colonial conference the past five years in which teams from that conference have made four appearances in the championship game, winning twice. During the same time period only one MVFC team has made the championship game. Among the four conferences mentioned here, the MVFC is clearly only better than the Big Sky.