College football is hard to predict, even when it comes to the basics. With a small sample size of only eight or nine conference games, and with all the players being of such a volatile age, nobody’s gonna get it right much more than half the time.

Here’s one look: Power 5 favorites, according to each conference’s official preseason polls from the last decade-plus, compared to who actually won each year.

The straight-up title record of conference favorites over this span is 27-33, with some conferences’ media faring more accurately than others. That record looks slightly better if we give full credit for split championships in which the conference favorite lost a head-to-head game against another co-champ, but that's the Participation Trophy of conference titles.

To the records, which show this is a hard sport to predict, even for people who are supposed to spend all their working hours studying it.

Predicted ACC champs Year Favorite Result Actual champ Year Favorite Result Actual champ 2006 Miami 4th in Coastal Wake Forest 2007 Virginia Tech Champ Virginia Tech 2008 Clemson T-3rd in Atlantic Virginia Tech 2009 Virginia Tech 2nd in Coastal Georgia Tech 2010 Virginia Tech Champ Virginia Tech 2011 Florida State T-2nd in Atlantic Clemson 2012 Florida State Champ Florida State 2013 Clemson 2nd in Atlantic Florida State 2014 Florida State Champ Florida State 2015 Clemson Champ Clemson 2016 Clemson Champ Clemson 2017 Florida State 6th in Atlantic Clemson 2018 Clemson ? ?

The ACC is usually relatively easy to predict, because there are only so many serious football schools.

Predicted Big 12 champs Year Favorite Result Actual champ Year Favorite Result Actual champ 2006 Oklahoma** Champ Oklahoma 2007 Oklahoma** Champ Oklahoma 2008 Oklahoma** Champ Oklahoma 2009 Texas** Champ Texas 2010 Texas** 6th South Oklahoma 2011 Oklahoma T-3rd Oklahoma State 2012 Oklahoma T-1st Kansas State* 2013 Oklahoma State T-2nd Baylor 2014 Oklahoma 4th Baylor* 2015 TCU T-2nd Oklahoma 2016 Oklahoma Champ Oklahoma 2017 Oklahoma Champ Oklahoma 2018 Oklahoma ? ?

Just pick Oklahoma every year.

Predicted Big Ten champs Year Favorite Result Actual champ Year Favorite Result Actual champ 2006 Ohio State*** Champ Ohio State 2007 Michigan T-2nd Ohio State 2008 Ohio State T-1st Penn State* 2009 Ohio State Champ Ohio State 2010 Ohio State T-1st Michigan State* 2011 Nebraska**** 3rd Legends Wisconsin 2012 Michigan 2nd Legends Wisconsin 2013 Ohio State Leaders champ Michigan State 2014 Ohio State Champ Ohio State 2015 Ohio State T-1st East Michigan State 2016 Ohio State T-1st East Penn State 2017 Ohio State Champ Ohio State 2018 Ohio State ? ?

Ohio State is the Power 5's most frequent conference favorite and is usually a near-miss at worst.

Predicted Pac-12 champs Year Favorite Result Actual champ Year Favorite Result Actual champ 2006 USC*** Champ USC* 2007 USC Champ USC* 2008 USC Champ USC 2009 USC T-5th Oregon 2010 Oregon Champ Oregon 2011 Oregon Champ Oregon 2012 USC T-2nd South Stanford 2013 Oregon T-1st North Stanford 2014 Oregon Champ Oregon 2015 USC South champ Stanford 2016 Stanford 3rd North Washington 2017 USC Champ USC 2018 Washington ? ?

Despite being the country's hardest conference to predict on a game-by-game basis, the Pac-12 might’ve had the easiest Power 5 champs to predict. Going back a few more years before 2006 would’ve made that even clearer, since USC would’ve tacked on multiple more.

Predicted SEC champs Year Favorite Result Actual champ Year Favorite Result Actual champ 2006 Auburn T-2nd West Florida 2007 LSU Champ LSU 2008 Florida Champ Florida 2009 Florida East champ Alabama 2010 Alabama 4th West Auburn 2011 Alabama 2nd West***** LSU 2012 LSU T-2nd West Alabama 2013 Alabama T-1st West Auburn 2014 Alabama Champ Alabama 2015 Auburn 7th West Alabama 2016 Alabama Champ Alabama 2017 Alabama T-1st West***** Georgia 2018 Alabama ? ?

The SEC media's record of picking champs compares fine with the Big Ten's or Big 12's as of late, but it’s the one most famously associated with a bad record (6-20 all-time), perhaps because only Alabama and a group of like four other schools ever have real chances to win it, so how hard could it be?

* In the event of tiebreakers, I listed the head-to-head winner.

** Big 12 polls until 2010 only listed division favorites, not conference favorites, so I used the AP Poll as a tiebreaker. A previous version of this post used raw Big 12 vote counts.

*** For a few older Big Ten and Pac-10/12 seasons, I couldn't find official releases, so I used the AP. The favorites seemed quite clear for each year.

**** The Big Ten stopped doing an official poll this year — what decorum, valor, sanctity, and scholarship! — so Cleveland.com handles it annually.

***** National champ though, lol.