@cuuf One reason that NQS is important for the top teams in SEC and PAC 12, is that it determines whether a team is placed in the AM or PM session of the conference championships.
A SEC or PAC 12 championship is highly coveted, and statistically no team has ever won the meet from the AM session. It also makes it challenging for individual titles to come from the first session.
PAC 12 standings are fairly close to what the NQS shows, at least in terms of dividing the sessions.
SEC is a different story.
Florida, Auburn, LSU, Alabama are currently in the PM session.
This is unfortunate for Kentucky, which is currently 2nd in the standings with a 4-1 record.
Auburn is currently in 6th but ranked 2nd by NQS.
Auburn was able to rest Gobourne and Lee against Missouri, which they ended up losing. They didn’t want to lose the meet, but nothing was really lost because the meet didn’t negatively impact their NQS.
I would prefer that regular season standings within conference is what is used for seeding the conference championships, so that conference meets have more importance. Otherwise it just crowns a “regular season champion”, which is a fairly new recognition.
Florida can clinch the regular season champion this Friday against Kentucky. Interestingly enough, if Kentucky can pull the upset against Florida, Kentucky would clinch at minimum a share of the regular season title with 5 wins. Florida would be 5-2.
Only Alabama would be able to tie them as they are 3-2. They would need to beat both LSU and Missouri.
Kentucky could win outright if they beat Florida and Auburn. Which is going to be extremely challenging.
Big 10 championship sessions are different. IIRC, when the teams compete at the two Big 5 meets this weekend, the outcome of the meet determines the placements. If you finish in the top 3 at either meet then you get to compete in the evening session.
Big 10 has to do the Big 5 meets because the conference is so large that it would be just about impossible to have dual meets within conference and be open to non conference meets due to the schedule.
This might change int he future as we have been seeing more of the larger meets happening and also lots of tris and quads. For TV purposes, the networks like the duals better.