On occasion, I'll read some blogs or message boards to get some insight (I use that term lightly) and discuss sports with people, since many of my friends aren't really into the whole "being a fan" deal. One of the topics that keeps coming up (especially after this upset-filled year) is college football's (just talking FBS here) best conference. I've heard a million arguments; some good, some downright stupid. Then, I thought:

You can't play football forever, right? And they're student-athletes, right?

So, which conference is best..in academics?

I did a little math and got the GSR (Graduation Success Rate) of all the Division 1 (FBS) teams* , then found the averages of the individual conferences. Here's the lowdown. According to the NCAA's press release, the GSR measures the team's percentage of players who

-began college between 1997-2000 and

-graduated in six years

This is the third year that they've used the GSR formula instead of the Federal Rate, which counted transfers and players who left the team as non-graduates. This new formula makes it as if transfers and "droppers" never existed. Anyway:

In descending order:

ACC-73.16%

MAC-68.23%

Big Ten-66.45%

Conference USA:65.33%

Big East:64.38%

Big XII:64.33%

Mountain West:63.22%

Sun Belt-62.71%**

SEC-59.75%

Pac 10-59.30%

WAC-53.67

Highest-Northwestern (Big 10, 94%)

Lowest-San Jose St (Wac, 36%)

*This doesn't including Navy, Army, Notre Dame, or Western Kentucky, as they're independents. To their credit, Navy, Army, and ND have GSR's of over 90%.

**This doesn't including FIU, as their football program has only been around since 2002. Not sure if that helps or hurts their conference.

It's settled. The ACC is the best conference.