The 50 Greatest College Football Programs All-Time Statistically Ranked
By Daniel
Which is the greatest college football program of all-time? We count down the nation’s top 50.
College football history buffs, this is for you.
College history is long and vast and filled with many surprises when looked at from today’s perspective. Princeton has claimed the most National Championships with 28, really? But they do not currently play a competitive enough schedule to be relevant today. How do we, as college football enthusiasts, break down history? How do we weigh success from the past and the present?
I asked myself these questions and then decided to create this list. To keep the list current (even though its an all-time list) I only considered and analyzed the histories of the teams that are currently ‘Power 5’ conferences and Notre Dame. And instead of going with opinions like most lists, I chose to stick to the numbers and go with facts. But this isn’t a ranking of the teams with the most National Championships all-time. Those numbers are easy to look up and do not warrant examination, plus there is more to being a great and consistent college football program than just winning National Championships. Thus, I valued many facets of success when creating this objective list.
Some programs haven’t been relevant in over fifty years, but their successful histories (no matter how distant) still deserve to be remembered. Other programs have only been elite for the last few decades, but aren’t historic powers and a just starting to climb this all-time list.
Often times many people view certain programs as all-time great schools when they aren’t actually historically that great when the numbers are broken down. That’s the nature of the phrase ‘all-time’ when it comes to sports. All-time doesn’t ignore any part of history, but rather includes all of it — and in this case, the good and bad of every college football program. It washes perception away. This list weighs the relative success of every college football team (Power 5 conference teams that is) and then ranks them accordingly from 50-1 based on the point system below.
Point Breakdown:
National Championship: 16 Points
Conference Championship: 14 Points
Heisman Trophy Winner: 12 Points
Bowl Game Victory: 10 Points
Bowl Game Loss: 6 Points
Consensus All-American: 4 Points
Regular Season Win: 1/4 Point
Points are awarded for both team success and individual success. Of course you’ll notice that the vast majority comes from team success on the field — as it should. I chose to award points for Heisman Trophy winners and All-Americans because those accolades further illustrate each team’s all-time greatness. I also awarded points for bowl game losses because teams should still be rewarded for making a bowl (as it demonstrates a successful season) even if they lose. That said, winning bowl games are obviously worth more points.
There are no opinions in this piece when it comes to each team’s placement. There is no bias toward recent success or any ignoring of ancient success — it simply accounts for all of it. If you’re upset with your team’s ranking, blame their lack of consistency of success. This list most handsomely rewards college football programs that have stayed consistently great and relevant. Here how the points were calculated.
Note: Programs that are no longer ‘Power 5’ programs were excluded from this list, because I chose to weigh the all-time success of all current ‘Power 5’ teams.
Where does your college football team rank?