Continued - Ranking Every Power Five College Football Program Since 1980, highlighting the Damaged
Jake Wimberly
We love to rank college football teams and we love to compare teams in different eras; compare programs as they pertain to decades and more. Who is the best? Is it Alabama of today, or Nebraska of 1995? Who had the better run in college football? Bobby Bowden’s Florida State teams or Pete Carrol’s USC teams?
Today we continue our journey to look at the 66 Power Five Programs and where their “Respective Program” ranks and stacks up against the rest.
We will look over the last forty years (from 1980 to 2020), and based on multiple criteria we will place every team in different tiers.
The tiers are as follows: Super Elite, First Rate, Top Flight, Passable, Strange, Tolerable, Mediocre, Not good enough, Damaged, Weak, Unsettling and Disturbing.
The criteria we will use is multiple, to give each team a final score in our simple program formula. Number of 6 win seasons, 10 win seasons, Conference Titles, Bowl appearances, Bowl wins, National Championship Appearances, National Championships and Losing Seasons.
We will drop individual articles on each tier, marching our way to the top programs of the last forty years.
We have already covered the disturbing tier and you can read about those teams here.
You can also read about the unsettling tier by clicking here.
You can read about the Weak in College Football right here.
Today we continue with the “Damaged” of college football.
NOTE: The scores in each column you see do not necessarily represent actual number of winning seasons, titles, etc. these numbers are calculated off a data set for definition purposes only - to come up with a final score.
47: Stanford Cardinal - If your school has a high academic requirement for entry, has to recruit a different athlete and looks to play at a high level - Stanford is that model. The Cardinal has won 5 conference championships the last 40 years, had seven, 10 win seasons and played in 17 bowls. The last 10 years have been extremely productive for the Cardinal under Jim Harbaugh and David Shaw, and if the formula stays in place the Cardinal are going no where.
46: Ole Miss - The yoyo of college football - the Ole Miss Rebels check in at number 46 on our list. A program with history, but the last 40 years have been full of ups and downs. From Eli Manning and beating Alabama back to back years, to losing to Jacksonville State and going on probation multiple times - Ole Miss football has been literally a football yoyo. The Rebs are yet to play in the SEC Championship game, but after a promising year one under Lane Kiffin, the Rebs look to be yet again heading back up on the yoyo swing.
45: Baylor - The first thirty of this run, have not been like the last ten for the Byalor Bears. Baylor does have 20 losing seasons over this stretch, but their run under Art Briles and Matt Rhule was nothing short of amazing. Yes, the program was marred by scandal and in the news for the wrong reasons, but on the field, the program produced eight conference champions over the last 40 years, six 10 win seasons and put a lot of guys in the National Football League.
44: The Colorado Buffalo - Colorado is our first school that went backwards on this list. If we were comparing the last decade, Colorado would be at the bottom of the entire list. Their time in the PAC 12 has not been kind, with only one winning season since 2011. Colorado shined though in the Big 8 and Big 12 under Bill McCartney and Rick Neuheisel rolling off eight conference titles and becoming a national talking point in the early 1990s.
43: The Arizona Wildcats- Much like Colorado, Arizona hasn’t had a lot to smile about lately. But, over the last 40 years, the Wildcats did have 25 seasons of six wins or more, a couple of conference titles and grabbed nine bowl wins. This program has basically floated around a 6-6 program for almost half a century and it’s head scratching considering the recruiting footprint they have.
42: The South Carolina Gamecocks - Carolina went from independent to the South Eastern Conference in 1992 and it’s been a very average run for the Gamecocks. SC has played in 19 bowls the last 40 years, winning nine of them, but has 15 losing seasons. Steve Spurrier really had the program humming back in 2012, but the Gamecocks are going to have to hit another level in recruiting and play on Saturday’s to match in state rival Clemson and compete for an SEC title.
41: Kansas State - You hear the name Kansas State and you will think Bill Snyder if you are familiar with college football and you should. Snyder is responsible for almost two thirds of the last 40 years. The Wildcats grabbed nine, 10 win seasons, played in 22 bowls and did more with less under Snyder. To put the last 40 years into perspective, the Wildcats literally lived between zero and four wins a year from around 1940 to 1980. To say the last 40 was better than the previous 40 is a vast understatement.
Tier below this one:
The Weak
48 Minnesota
49 Missouri
50 Syracuse
51 Miss. State
52 Maryland
53 Illinois
54 California
Unsettling
55 Northwestern
56 Kentucky
57 Purdue
58 Washington State
59 Wake Forest
Disturbing
60 Oregon State
61 Iowa State
62 Kansas
63 Indiana
64 Rutgers
65 Duke
66 Vanderbilt
NEXT UP: Just not good enough
Editors note: All photos courtesy of 247sports.com
