Teams That Won Conference Titles Despite 2 Non-Conference Losses
“It’s a new start next week,” Mack Brown said after last week’s 44-23 loss to Ole Miss. “We can get all of this righted by winning the Big 12 Championship, and that’s what they’ve got to do.”
“They’re lucky they have a conference,” Brown continued later in the press conference. “And they’re lucky they can start over.”
Though the anguish of two non-conference losses lingers, a clean slate awaits the Longhorns as conference play begins this Saturday against Kansas State.
It’s not uncommon for a team to win its conference after losing two non-conference games. In fact, the Longhorns accomplished this feat in 1996, and two teams went on to win their conferences last year despite a similar non-conference record.
(Also See: The Year Texas Lost 2 Non-Conference Games and Won the Big 12)
In the last 20 years, 19 teams that play in BCS Automatic Qualifying conferences went on to raise a conference championship banner despite losing two non-conference games. That’s a 15.8 percent probability that a two-loss team entering conference play will win the conference title. Not great odds, but not something to count out, either.
Here’s a list of the BCS Automatic Qualifying teams that accomplished this feat in the last 20 years:
1993
USC Trojans (Co-Champions with Arizona)
1994
Oregon Ducks
1995
Virginia Cavaliers (Co-Champions with Florida State)
Miami Hurricanes (Co-Champions with Virginia Tech)
Washington Huskies (Co-Champions with USC)
1996
Texas Longhorns
Miami Hurricanes (Co-Champions with Virginia Tech and Syracuse)
Syracuse Orange (Co-Champions with Virginia Tech and Miami)
1997
Syracuse Orange
1998
Syracuse Orange
1999
Stanford Cardinal
2002
Florida State Seminoles
2003
West Virginia Mountaineers
2010
Virginia Tech Hokies
Connecticut Huskies (Co-Champions with West Virginia and Pittsburgh)
Pittsburgh Panthers (Co-Champions with West Virginia and Connecticut)
2011
Louisville Cardinals (Co-Champions with Cincinnati and West Virginia)
2012
Syracuse Orange (Co-Champions with Louisville)
Wisconsin Badgers
#HookEm
