This is the most important BCS Egg Trophy Ever: Frumpzilla's Top 25 College Football Programs of the Decade
*****UPDATE: Due to a relatively high volume of great reader feedback (and requests), we’ve added several variations of our rankings below. Many thanks to all that have left feedback and offered suggestions on how to improve and expand the rankings.*****
*****UPDATE II: I’ve been informed that the data sheets below don’t always load properly at first, and I’ve experienced this myself. If you encounter this issue, reloading the page seems to fix it. Thanks.*****
I know, I know. The Super Bowl contenders are now set. Football fans, if not the vast majority of sports fans in general, are far more concerned with whether Drew wins his first or if Peyton can solidify himself as the greatest quarterback of all time. Understandable. I mean, even I’m more excited than usual for this Super Bowl.
So why do a “Best of the Decade” college football list now? Well, nearly a month removed from Alabama’s 8th, 13th or 27th National Championship (depending on who you ask), let’s just say I wasn’t quite ready to let go of my #1 sports passion yet.
Yes, not willing to wait for next season, I decided instead to reexamine the depths of the last 10 in an effort to establish the final top 25: The Top 25 college football programs of the decade (it’s actually the Top 57, or so, but I figured I should use “Top 25″ in the title for SEO reasons).
Make the jump for Frumpzilla’s epic compilation, along with a detailed explanation of the methodology behind our rankings…
Qualification:
I didn’t possess the fortitude to crunch the numbers for every college football program, but I did for just about every program that’s relevant to this discussion. As long as a team ranked in the top 50 for number of weeks appearing in any weekly edition of the AP Top 25 between 2000 and 2010 (that’s seasons 2000-2009 only, by the way), they’re included. Beyond that I even included some extra local flavor, and I think all reasonable interests should be covered.
Scoring:
Winning is everything, so, naturally, I used total wins from seasons 2000-2009 as my base scoring system. Conference Championship game wins and bowl wins are included in this number, too. Everything beyond that operated as a bonus, and those bonuses are as follows…
Conference Championship Bonus:
I struggled with this one, because, while I certainly felt programs needed to be rewarded for the luster a conference championship adds, winning the Mountain West or Western Athletic Conference isn’t exactly the same as winning the SEC. Nor is having to play that extra conference championship game when other champs essentially get a bye week.
Still, given that one of our goals here was to reduce the element of subjectivity as much as reasonably possible, I didn’t think it would be fair to give teams from certain conferences greater bonuses than others. Instead I decided to keep the bonus relatively moderate, and just give 1 bonus point for any conference championship season. If a team was only a Co-Champion for a given season, they were rewarded 1/2 a bonus point. Notre Dame, being an Independent, was rewarded 1/2 a point for every BCS bid they received (join a conference, Irish, if you want the full point).
Bowl Wins:
Bowl wins garnered 1 bonus point. BCS bowls are not included in this number, as you’ll see below.
BCS Bowl Wins:
BCS bowl wins got your school 2 bonus points. Please note, however, that these points, as well as all the the other bonus points, do not stack upon each other. For example: Georgia winning the Sugar Bowl in 2002 would earn the Dawgs 2 bonus points for a BCS bowl win; NOT 1 bonus point for a bowl win plus ANOTHER 2 points for a BCS bowl win.
Final Top 25 Finish:
1 bonus point was awarded for each season a team finished in the final AP Top 25.
Final Top 10 Finish:
2 bonus points were awarded for finishing a season in the AP Top 10. This does not stack upon the Top 25 bonus point. For instance, finishing #8 in the country for a given year would only earn a program 2 bonus points; NOT 1 bonus point for finishing in the Top 25 AND another 2 for finishing in the Top 10.
Final Top 5 Finish:
If a team finished in the final AP Top 5 for the season, they received 3 bonus points. This is not stacked with any other bonuses, as noted above.
MNC Bonus:
If a team ended the season as the BCS National Champion (aka, the Mythical National Champion) they were awarded 13 bonus points. Again, these points did not stack with any other bonuses. Winning the MNC would NOT get you 13 bonus points AND the 3 bonus points for finishing in the Top 5, for example.
My rationale here was that 13 points, while being the natural equivalent of a perfect season, also happened to match the scoring for a win (1), Conference Championship (1), bowl win (1), BCS bowl win (2), Top 25 finish (1), Top 10 finish (2), Top 5 finish (3) and then an additional 2 points for winning the BCS Title game. Moreover, though 13 points is certainly a substantial bonus, I imagine fans of nearly every program would gladly sacrifice that many wins over the course of a decade in exchange for a MNC.
Strength of Schedule:
In order to protect against, or at least minimize the impact of, the inevitable pitfall of questions related to disparities in competition level, I used Jeff Sagarin’s Strength of Schedule ratings as a final, additional bonus. Sagarin’s SOS ratings have not been free of controversy, of course, and he’s still never revealed how he computes them, but they were the only ratings I found that made it easy and accessible to prune data. They’re also used by the official BCS rankings, so I felt that added a level of authority.
To apply the bonus, I simply averaged a team’s Sagarin Strength of Schedule (SSOS) rating from each season this decade and added the result to their score. You can see each year’s SSOS’s and corresponding final average in the table below the final rankings table.
Caveats:
USC and LSU obviously caused some problems. For their AP and USA Today Coaches Poll shake up in 2003, I gave them each 1/2 credit for a national championship, BCS bowl win, and Top 5 finish.
Also, despite several of the teams ranked having changed conferences (in some cases multiple times) over the course of the decade, each team’s conference is listed related to the current alignment.
The Top 25 of the Decade
Most of you probably haven’t taken the time to peruse the methodology (that’s fine, it’s a bit dense), but, if you have, thanks for reading. Now on to the fun part. You can see the full, detailed results in the Excel table below, but for those of you that can’t be bothered to look at the rankings more intently, here are the results for the Top 25 (Win based scoring system).
- USC
- Oklahoma
- Texas
- Ohio State
- Florida
- LSU
- Georgia
- Boise State
- Miami
- Virginia Tech
- Oregon
- Florida State
- TCU
- Auburn
- West Virginia
- Boston College
- Utah
- Alabama
- Michigan
- Wisconsin
- Nebraska (tie with Iowa)
- Iowa (tie with Nebraska)
- Texas Tech
- Oregon State
- Tennessee
And for those of you that appreciate the finer points, here are the full rankings with data plugged in…
And then here is the SSOS data…
*****As mentioned above, we’ve received a lot of feedback and requests related to this article. As such, we decided to run the data through some different base scoring systems to see how it altered results (Winning %, Bonus Heavy, and Win-Loss Delta). None of the bonuses have been touched, and Sagarin’s SOS ratings are still incorporated in each set.***
The Top 25 under a Win Percentage Base Scoring System
Here a program’s win percentage from 2000-2009 was converted to serve as the base score instead of total wins.
- USC
- Texas
- Oklahoma
- Ohio State
- Florida
- LSU
- Miami
- Georgia
- Boise State
- Virginia Tech
- Oregon
- West Virginia
- Utah
- Texas Christian
- Auburn
- Florida State
- Boston College
- Alabama
- Michigan
- Iowa
- Oregon State
- Nebraska
- Penn State
- Wisconsin
- Tennessee
Data here…
The Top 25 under a “true” win percentage/bonus heavy based scoring system
Here win percentage is not converted, but rather, for example, is left at .769 instead of 76.9. This naturally increases the weight/importance of the bonuses (winning conference championships, winning bowls, winning BCS bowls, finishing as high as possible in the AP Poll, and, most importantly, National Championships) substantially.
- USC
- Florida
- Ohio State
- Oklahoma
- Texas
- LSU
- Miami
- Georgia
- Virginia Tech
- Florida State
- Alabama
- Oregon
- West Virginia
- Auburn
- Utah
- Michigan
- Iowa
- Boston College
- Boise State
- Oregon State
- Penn State
- Nebraska
- Tennessee
- California
- Texas Christian
Here is the data…
The Top 25 under a Win-Loss Delta base scoring system
Here losses are subtracted from wins with the difference serving as a program’s base score prior to bonuses.
- Texas
- USC
- Oklahoma
- Ohio State
- Florida
- Boise State
- LSU
- Georgia
- Miami
- Virginia Tech
- Texas Christian
- Oregon
- Utah
- Auburn
- West Virginia
- Boston College
- Florida State
- Michigan
- Wisconsin
- Nebraska
- Texas Tech
- Alabama
- Louisville
- Iowa
- Tennessee
And here’s the data…
“Master Score”
Finally, below you’ll find a Master Sheet of all the data used in the compilation of these rankings. It’s sorted by the column titled “Master Score,” which is simply the sum of each program’s score under each of the four ranking systems. We’re not offering it as the comprehensive, best set of rankings of the group or anything; rather just a nice statistical data dump for all you stat lovers out there. Nevertheless, here’s The Top 25 by each program’s “Master Score”:
- USC
- Texas
- Oklahoma
- Ohio State
- Florida
- LSU
- Miami
- Georgia
- Boise State
- Virginia Tech
- Oregon
- Texas Christian
- West Virginia
- Auburn
- Florida State
- Utah
- Boston College
- Alabama
- Michigan
- Iowa
- Oregon State
- Nebraska
- Wisconsin
- Tennessee
- Texas Tech
And here’s the Master Sheet…
Disclaimer:
Now, we don’t have editors here at Frumpzilla (I mean, that should be clear from our motto), so it’s possible there are some errors present in the calculations that led to our final rankings. If you find any, please be sure to let us know.
Moreover, none of us, at least to my knowledge, are statisticians, or even particularly good at math. The GingerHead Man can do this really neat trick with instantly calculating and extracting the number of vowels present in even really big words, or something, but that’s about it. We’re just fans that enjoy a friendly debate (and lists). That said, I’m sure someone out there can develop a better methodology, and if you have any thoughts, suggestions or ideas, please constructively critique away.
Oh, and if you just want to bitch about your team being ranked too low (i.e. below Boise State, TCU and/or Utah), or even not ranked at all, please feel free to do that as well. Leave a comment, or drop us a line, insulting or otherwise, at frumpmail@gmail.com.
January 27, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Pretty sure Texas only has 110 wins this decade. Tied with OU for the most.
January 27, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Texas total should be 225.3
January 27, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Thanks, Eric. I’m checking on this now.
January 27, 2010 at 3:26 pm
How can a team with 3 NTs finish 5th in this list? Shouldn’t that count more than it does???
January 27, 2010 at 3:29 pm
Indeed, it’s 110 (silly calculator (or my fingers)). Luckily this doesn’t change the overall rankings (phew), but I’m updating the Excel file now. Many thanks again.
January 27, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Hey FSUsucks, maybe if UF wasn’t so mediocre in the beginning of the decade you’d finish higher on the list. It seems to reward on consistency and tend to really enjoy this list.
January 27, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Texas and Oklahoma are very impressive at 110 wins each, but they are the highest.
Boise State with 112 wins has the most this decade, as the chart shows.
Interesting list, I like how you try to take some of the subjectivity out of it.
January 27, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Thanks for reading, Don. Eliminating as much subjectivity as possible was certainly one of our main goals. Even with that goal in mind, however, I was still quite surprised at where some of these teams landed after plugging all their respective data into the scoring system.
January 27, 2010 at 5:19 pm
PSU won the Orange Bowl following the 2005 season. Since when is the OB not a BCS bowl?
January 27, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Nice work! I like this. If I read the point system correctly, I believe Iowa should have a full 1 pt under CC conf champs. They shared the 2002 (tied with OSU) and 2004 titles (tied UM).
January 27, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Really cool RT @YieldToFrump: The Top 25 college football programs of the Decade. It's science… http://tiny.cc/1sBPe
January 27, 2010 at 5:45 pm
@ Mike: Thanks for pointing out that oversight. I’ve updated the chart to give them the 2 bonus points, as well as PSU’s total score.
@ oleo: You’re right. Iowa should have 1 point for the Conference Championship bonus, too. It’s now updated, and their new total of 169.5 ties them with Nebraska for that #21/#22 spot.
Thanks to both of you for reading and your help in making sure the rankings as accurate as possible.
January 27, 2010 at 5:51 pm
RT @bmcclain: Really cool RT @YieldToFrump: The Top 25 college football programs of the Decade. It's science… http://tiny.cc/1sBPe
January 27, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Auburn has 88 wins
2009 8 5
2008 5 7
2007 9 4
2006 11 2
2005 9 3
2004 13 0
2003 8 5
2002 9 4
2001 7 5
2000 9 4
88 39
January 27, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Auburn had 88 victories in the decade and finished in the top 25 6 times. Your raw data do not reflect either of those realities.
January 27, 2010 at 6:59 pm
@ Rich and Cowdogcam
Looks like one of Auburn’s seasons got axed by the number cruncher somehow. I’ve now updated their win total, and this has a huge impact on them and the rankings as a whole, so thanks for the correction.
I’ve also updated their finishes of 11-25 to accurately reflect the 4 times this happended (4 points), as opposed to the 2 that were there initially.
Many thanks again.
January 27, 2010 at 11:17 pm
RT @YieldToFrump: Frumpzilla has a (well calculated) Top 25 CFB of the decade: USC #1 Okla #2 Texas #3 OSU #4 #Gators #5 http://is.gd/7b70R
January 28, 2010 at 12:59 am
I think you have the top 10 right or close to right. I would have put Ohio State at 4 behind USC, FL, and LSU. TX might deserve a top 4 nod but giving OK that ranking with their abysmal record in BCS play is laughable. I guess I would have put more weight into winning BCS bowl games. Still, I guess that case can be made for conference wins being a big factor along with total wins as it represents a full seasons worth of play vs one game.
January 28, 2010 at 9:27 am
USC?! The most overrated coach from a so-so conference with only one BCS title over Florida is absurd. This is why twoever did this poll doesn’t get to play with the real pollsters. Must be jealousy I guess.
January 28, 2010 at 10:04 am
Thanks for reading, Bamanark. Believe me, I was as surprised as anyone that UF ranked as low as they did in this system. If anything, I’m probably an SEC homer, so I would have loved to see Florida higher and LSU in the Top 5. In the end, however, the Trojans (and others) appear to have been more consistent in terms of overall success this decade.
USC has more wins, more Conference Championships, more BCS wins, more Top 5 finishes, 1 National Championship (arguably two) and, to top it all off, they’ve played a tougher overall schedule than the Gators (at least according to Jeff Sagarin).
As you see, I’m giving USC credit for 1.5 National Championships (same with LSU based on the 2003 season). This wasn’t an easy decision, and I certainly think it’s fair to question it. However, even if I knocked USC down to 1 Championship, and gave them full credit, as opposed to half, for a BCS win and Top 5 finish, they still come out ahead of the Gators by 5 points.
With that in mind, what would you suggest I modify if my goal were to push Florida above USC and NOT make it seem I’m trying to cook the statistics? Again, thanks for reading, and we appreciate the feedback.
January 28, 2010 at 11:06 am
I’m don’t know how you calculated the strength of schedule, but I’m not sure that anyone had a tougher schedule than the University of Georgia in 2008.
January 28, 2010 at 11:15 am
While we’re not the BCS(although most don’t like that one either), it’s pretty clear that USC gets rewarded mostly on its consistency.
UF suffers more from the Ron Zook years than anyone else gets rewarded for being in a “soft” conference.
As was said before, the formula was created before looking at individual teams, programs fall where they fall. We were surprised quite a bit as well. Thanks to everyone for pointing out the mistakes and helping out with the article!
January 28, 2010 at 11:34 am
@ Craig:
As noted in the post, we simply used Jeff Sagarin’s final Strength of Schedule ratings from seasons 2000-2009, averaged them for each team, and then added that figure to each team’s total score as a bonus.
I tend to agree with your instincts, though. Sagarin’s SOS ratings seem odd to me on the surface, but then he’s never revealed how he calculates them. This obviously makes it difficult to offer a meaningful critique.
January 28, 2010 at 12:11 pm
Great piece of work. Really enjoyed it. Didn’t necessarily agree with it, but I really think this is a great body of work. Cheers, Frump! ‘ll buy ye’ a few pints of Guinness someday.
How would things shake out if you subtracted wins against non-BCS opponents? I’d like to see how that would change the results for a number of schools who regularly schedule Div I-aa (or whatever they’re called this year) schools, at home, to help pad their stat’s.
It would be interesting to see the out-of-conference records for teams both at home and away, too, when BCS teams play each other.
January 28, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Did someone say Guiness?
January 28, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Of course, Cochese comes out of the woodwork when Guiness is mentioned.
Horseman, you do realize we view that as a legal, binding, contract. We will find you and claim our beer. It’s what we do best(aside from statistical analysis that gets mixed reviews of course). Thanks for the comments!
January 28, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Ahhh, I can see the shareholders at Diageo will be quite pleased I opened the door to my own bankruptcy after paying you guys’ bar tabs with their stout!
Well, that’s how it goes. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it… Cheers, all. Slainte!
January 28, 2010 at 5:29 pm
This list (and the work behind it) is SPECTACULAR. I love statistics and debate and college football, so it is right up my alley. i love that you came up with the parameters before the rankings and let the chips fall. Thanks for doing this.
The singular quibble that I have is your splitting of the bonus for the LSU/USC shared MNC. I think that they should both get the full 3 point bonus. Since both were given 1.5 points, it looks as though each of them finished in the Top 25, but not even in the Top 10 for that season. Even though they are just bonus points and they have both been rewarded for good seasons (with bonus points for CC and good win totals) they both claim – and are accepted by most as – co-champions. You were not dealing with a finite # of bonus points that you could award, and both have been slightly downgraded for the exceptional circumstances of that season. Even Washington State gets more bonus points for 2003 than either of your co-champions – and they finished 9th.
Past that, hell even including that, I wish that I had been the one to come up with this methodology and this list.
I will happily add to your Guinness quotient as well….any time.
Now get to work on fixing the BCS and keep Jim Delaney posted on your progress…….
January 29, 2010 at 9:54 am
OOh Yeah!! USC Baby!! Gotta admit, they were tops. Each and every year, they would play their first game on the East Coast or away from the west, and Beat whichever team in whichever conference. Their only tough games were against PAC 10 teams.
Now to see wht Lane Kiffin can do. Hopefylly, his father, Monte, can keep him in line.
January 29, 2010 at 10:12 am
Thanks to Gregory and Horsemen for the kind words. We try to be in the business of quality whenever we can. We look forward to having discussions with everyone in the future! Be sure to find us on facebook and follow us on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/YieldToFrump
January 29, 2010 at 2:02 pm
Ok For D-1 Football—-but how about charting D-2 and D-3 football teams that also play football.Check out Mount Union College Ohio Purple Raiders [D-3] www.mtunionfootball.com.6 Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl Championships last decade [10 overall] with 139 Won 5 Lost.
Coach Larry Kehres overall record in 24 years is 285 won 22 lost [is not a typo error] and 3 tied.Winning percentage over 92%—WOW.Mount Union And Coach Kehres is amazingly unreal and Continue be like Smuckers Peanut Butter and Smuckers Jelly—-SIMPLY THE BEST ! How about doing TOP 25 for other lower division football teams for last decade where the majority of players are the ”
Real Student/ Athletes”.
February 1, 2010 at 1:37 pm
this doesnt make sence if the PAC champ is beaten by the WAC champ doesnt that automaticly put that teams SOS ahead of the PAC? and the MWC for that matter
February 1, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Thanks for reading, Bonehead. I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking, but it sounds like you’re perplexed about the SOS ratings. Believe me, you’re not the first one that’s been left scratching their head after perusing Jeff Sagarin’s SOS rankings.
Unfortunately, it’s possible he’s the only person that knows exactly how they’re computed, so all SOS questions should be directed to him
.
Seriously, though. We wanted to incorporate some semblance of SOS into the rankings, and, as noted in the article, Sagarin’s happened to be some of the most accessible. They’re also used by the BCS, and, since we were basically trying to develop our rankings within the somewhat objective envelope of widely accepted (however flawed) 3rd party perspective (i.e. “real” college football rankings), we thought using Sagarin may lend some credibility.
February 2, 2010 at 12:03 am
This was fun to read. Still something doesn’t feel right about it especially with the strength of schedule. Aren’t those calculated at the beginning of the season rather than the end? I mean remember at the time Michigan beat Notre Dame early on this year or when Oregon beat USC it seemed like a bigger deal than it actually ended up being.
My complaint really doesn’t have much merit though anyways since so much of this unfortunately has to be based on the polls and the equality of conferences. I mean really does anyone believe that Boise State’s WAC dominance means as much as USC winning the PAC 10 over and over? I know these are impossible to resolve and you did a great job putting all this data together and its tough to complain with the results.
It would have been nice if you added a simple list of like how many teams from each conference made the top 25 of the decade for a fun comparison.
February 2, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Thanks for reading, John V. The SOS figures we used are the final SOS ratings from Jeff Sagarin for each season (they’re calculated/updated after all games, including bowls, have been played).
As for your request about a list of Top 25 of the Decade appearances by conference, here ya go:
SEC (6)
ACC (4)
Big 10 (4)
Big 12 (4)
PAC 10 (3)
MWC (2)
Big East (1)
WAC (1)
Three teams cracked the Top 25 of the Decade in the new systems:
-Penn State displaced Texas Tech in the Win % Base.
-Penn State and California knocked out Texas Tech and Wisconsin in the Bonus Heavy Base.
-Louisville knocked out Oregon State in the Win-Loss Delta base.
Hope that helps, and thanks again for reading.
February 3, 2010 at 10:46 am
As far as Sagarin’s SOS rankings go, I’m almost positive that he punishes teams for playing FCS schools and gives extra credit for games against the other BCS conferences. This explains why the Pac-10 – which in 2006 went to a 9-game league schedule and traditionally plays fewer FCS schools – has 8 of the top 17 toughest schedules. Also, only four schools in the country have avoided playing FCS schools – and three of them (USC, Washington, UCLA) are in the Pac-10 (Notre Dame is the fourth).
Here’s betting that, had Florida State not made the cowardly decision to schedule two FCS schools in 2008, they would top the SOS rankings.
February 3, 2010 at 12:19 pm
@ Joe: That is the theory I’ve always heard regarding Sagarin’s SOS ratings and the PAC 10′s curious domination of them as well. It certainly seems plausible. Thanks for reading/commenting.
February 3, 2010 at 2:59 pm
I must say job well done!! The Pac 10 does so well in the ssos because it is the only conference to play every team in there conference and not schedule cupcake teams to pad there record. Also USC and Oregon have attempted to schedule games with FU and FSU only to be turned down by those schools. It appears to me as well as many other Pac 10 fans that these schools who would rather schedule the cupcakes instead of real competition are the ones that get the so called championships the most.
October 6, 2011 at 2:29 pm
http://t.co/qMZC1VEp interesting article top 25 CFB teams of the last decade
October 6, 2011 at 2:30 pm
http://t.co/qMZC1VEp interesting article top 25 CFB teams of the last decade
October 6, 2011 at 2:33 pm
#WVU in the top 15 in ever category for the Top 25 CFB teams in the past decade… http://t.co/MTAw9yA3
October 6, 2011 at 2:35 pm
#WVU in the top 15 in every category for the Top 25 CFB teams in the past decade… http://t.co/MTAw9yA3
October 6, 2011 at 2:41 pm
#11 VT RT @Mountaineer http://t.co/7axbeMP1 interesting article top 25 CFB teams of the last decade
October 6, 2011 at 5:05 pm
http://t.co/qMZC1VEp interesting article top 25 CFB teams of the last decade
October 22, 2011 at 1:24 am
@wiwildbill @MartyBad http://t.co/PtckAttT
October 26, 2011 at 9:14 pm
@AaronDickens Here's a site that uses different models to rate teams. WVU is in all of them. http://t.co/mRYjKCZN
February 18, 2012 at 11:41 am
Nice… but why did you not calculate probation into the equation?
July 11, 2012 at 8:12 pm
@ChanceMock @thatsean Guy's stat based article on the Top 25 CFB teams of '00s. Takes wins, BCS, and AP rankings.
http://t.co/0oM97FSR
April 11, 2013 at 4:24 pm
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