Favorite College Football Team By Conference

[Catholics vs. Convicts]

Aside from my main two teams, my favorite team in each conference will change pretty often, since this is a sport where every roster basically turns over every 4 years.

B1G: Illinois is my alma mater, so it will always be #1. But they are so bad, that I still follow my childhood favorite team, Michigan, just as much, if not more. But these teams I watch each weekend.

ACC: I guess I like BC as a school the most, but its hard to ever get excited about their terrible athletics. I enjoy seeing Syracuse do well, and I can appreciate Duke, since I hate UNC so much.

Big 12: I like Texas, loved visiting Austin. But I also enjoy watching TCU succeed. Any school isn't too bad though, except Baylor.

PAC 12: This conference is just so meh. I guess Colorado maybe. I don't hate these schools, but I just have no reason to like them either.

SEC: I guess Vandy. Some schools are ok like Georgia, but I usually start to dislike them after a while. Vandy is by far the least off putting choice.

[Catholics vs. Convicts]

PAC 12: This conference is just so meh. I guess Colorado maybe. I don't hate these schools, but I just have no reason to like them either.

You're seriously missing out. The PAC12 has such a rich history of CFB and the current dynamics of the conference are fascinating, with USC still recovering from sanctions and multiple self-imposed hiring miscues; Washington is finally returning to national prominence after two decades in the wilderness; Wazzu with certifiable crazyman Mike Leach, the rising and unpredictable Arizona schools, Oregon's fight to stay relevant in a recruiting wasteland, Cal and UCLA perpetually underperforming, plus newcomers Utah and Colorado, one of which is a 90s powerhouse with an excellent coach, while the other is a perpetual overperforming minor conference team.

Oh and Oregon State exists too, I suppose.

I think if you live in the Midwest or east, it's just so hard to get interested ... from our perspective, the games are on at such strange times, we rarely play those teams and we don't really know that much about the conference.  I'm sure it is just as exciting to people in the West as the Big Ten is in the Midwest or the SEC is in the South, but it almost seems like a separate universe sometimes, LOL.  Plus, whether academically or in football/basketball, the Pac-12 always seems SO top heavy with such a pathetic bottom.

It's much much easier to argue the opposite. PAC-12 football has too much parity, not too little. Especially when you compare to the SEC (Bama, one or two good-ish teams, everyone else is a garbage fire with no hope in sight). And as for a "pathetic bottom," the gulf between best and worst teams in the PAC12 is nowhere near as bad as difference between the OSU/Penn States and the Illinois/Rutgers tier in the Big 10; only one team in the PAC-12 right now has a losing record and no team looks unbeatable. While that parity wasn't really there last year, that was the exception and not the norm; look at the 2013-15 PAC standings. Plus, the worst teams in the PAC-12 right now (the Arizonas, Oregon, UCLA) were among the best ones four years ago and vice versa (hi Wazzu and Utah) and nothing about the current crop of best teams makes me think that this group will still be on top four years from now.

The only real problem with the PAC-12 is the time their games air. This is seen by their coaches as a problem, its just not one the networks care about.

I was thinking more historically.  Even schools like Illinois and Minnesota actually have fairly rich football traditions, even if they have sucked forever.  Additionally, basketball (with UCLA, Arizona and Utah really being the only schools with any respectable tradition compared to Indiana, Illinois, Michigan State, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Purdue, Michigan, Maryland, etc. in the Big Ten) and academics (along with heavyweights USC, UCLA, Cal and Stanford, you have some of the lowest ranked BCS schools in the country) are more lopsided.  I have nothing against the Pac-12 and actually kind of like a few of the teams, I'm just saying there is a perception that most people out there don't care as much as fans in the Midwest and South, so it doesn't seem very ... intense.  Lots of smaller fan bases (Stanford, Oregon State, Utah, etc.) and teams in areas where the interest is perceived to be lower (Los Angeles, Bay Area, Colorado).

This is what I meant. It's not all the conference's fault, but it takes a greater effort to find reason to and actually care about the Pac-12 compared to other conferences. ESPN and sports media deserve some blame too. The best Pac team in football over the past 10 years has been Stanford, and they have been great, but its a small school with so many other things going on that any success in football has been pretty quiet. Basketball wise, this past year was the first time since 2008 that an Pac-12 team made the Final Four. Over that same time: ACC(7) B1G(7) SEC(6) Big East(6) have had way more. No football championship since 2004, no basketball championship since 1997. So there is no doubt that the Pac-12 is a competitive and probably fun league to follow and watch. But to really get the rest of the country's attention, you probably need to have one the best teams going undefeated.