50 best programs over 150 years

GTRX7

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ESPN has an article ranking the 50 best college football programs over the last 150 years. Can't say I love our ranking at 36. (LINK)

Basically says we have been "more wreck than ramblin'" since 1966 and the last time we were relevant was when we "made Florida State sweat to win the ACC in the late 1990s." I mean, while we haven't always been consistently great, we have always been consistently good with some great seasons. Since O'Leary (allegedly the last time we were relevant), we have gone to 15 of 17 possible bowls, had a .500 or better record in the ACC 16 of the last 17 years, won 9 or more games 4 times, gone to the ACC Championship game 4 times (winning one), and gone to 2 BCS bowls (winning 1).

Combine that with our pre-1966 history and what should be credited as 4 National Titles (they only credit 3), and 36 is disrespectful.
 

GT_05

Helluva Engineer
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2,370
ESPN has an article ranking the 50 best college football programs over the last 150 years. Can't say I love our ranking at 36. (LINK)

Basically says we have been "more wreck than ramblin'" since 1966 and the last time we were relevant was when we "made Florida State sweat to win the ACC in the late 1990s." I mean, while we haven't always been consistently great, we have always been consistently good with some great seasons. Since O'Leary (allegedly the last time we were relevant), we have gone to 15 of 17 possible bowls, had a .500 or better record in the ACC 16 of the last 17 years, won 9 or more games 4 times, gone to the ACC Championship game 4 times (winning one), and gone to 2 BCS bowls (winning 1).

Combine that with our pre-1966 history and what should be credited as 4 National Titles (they only credit 3), and 36 is disrespectful.

Strange ratings. Clemson has won 3 nattys since 1981 and they’re ranked #24, 2 spots behind the 1 natty mutts.


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DvilleJacket

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When they were putting tiny colleges in I kinda didn't take it very seriously. Had no idea how dominant Princeton once was!
 

smokey_wasp

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Weird list, in that they included Division III schools, even. Tennessee at 14 is weird, too.

Paul Johnson gets a mention as GA Southern comes in at # 48.
 

knoxjacket

Ramblin' Wreck
Messages
855
ESPN has an article ranking the 50 best college football programs over the last 150 years. Can't say I love our ranking at 36. (LINK)

Basically says we have been "more wreck than ramblin'" since 1966 and the last time we were relevant was when we "made Florida State sweat to win the ACC in the late 1990s." I mean, while we haven't always been consistently great, we have always been consistently good with some great seasons. Since O'Leary (allegedly the last time we were relevant), we have gone to 15 of 17 possible bowls, had a .500 or better record in the ACC 16 of the last 17 years, won 9 or more games 4 times, gone to the ACC Championship game 4 times (winning one), and gone to 2 BCS bowls (winning 1).

Combine that with our pre-1966 history and what should be credited as 4 National Titles (they only credit 3), and 36 is disrespectful.

Which of the top 35 should we jump? I’m not sure I see any.
 

BuzzThePlumber

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1,205
ESPN has an article ranking the 50 best college football programs over the last 150 years. Can't say I love our ranking at 36. (LINK)

Basically says we have been "more wreck than ramblin'" since 1966 and the last time we were relevant was when we "made Florida State sweat to win the ACC in the late 1990s." I mean, while we haven't always been consistently great, we have always been consistently good with some great seasons. Since O'Leary (allegedly the last time we were relevant), we have gone to 15 of 17 possible bowls, had a .500 or better record in the ACC 16 of the last 17 years, won 9 or more games 4 times, gone to the ACC Championship game 4 times (winning one), and gone to 2 BCS bowls (winning 1).

Combine that with our pre-1966 history and what should be credited as 4 National Titles (they only credit 3), and 36 is disrespectful.
Garbage list.
 

FightWinDrink

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I believe S&P recently did this too and we were ranked like 23 or 24

edit: it's because ESPN is giving a ton of bonus points to lower division schools that dominate FCS, D2, and D3 and they short us a national title only giving us 3
 
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13,443
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Augusta, GA
ESPN has an article ranking the 50 best college football programs over the last 150 years. Can't say I love our ranking at 36. (LINK)

Basically says we have been "more wreck than ramblin'" since 1966 and the last time we were relevant was when we "made Florida State sweat to win the ACC in the late 1990s." I mean, while we haven't always been consistently great, we have always been consistently good with some great seasons. Since O'Leary (allegedly the last time we were relevant), we have gone to 15 of 17 possible bowls, had a .500 or better record in the ACC 16 of the last 17 years, won 9 or more games 4 times, gone to the ACC Championship game 4 times (winning one), and gone to 2 BCS bowls (winning 1).

Combine that with our pre-1966 history and what should be credited as 4 National Titles (they only credit 3), and 36 is disrespectful.
At least they only credited the mutts with one NC, ignoring their claim for 1942
 

bke1984

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Which of the top 35 should we jump? I’m not sure I see any.
Well...every D3 and D2 school for started since none of them have any D1 national titles. Boise for sure...A&M, Washington...this list is kind of a joke. It’s supposed to be all time right? How do you justify the Ivy League schools with how good they were on the front end, the Boise’s and FSU’s for how good they were on the back end, bust discount how good we were in the middle.
 

knoxjacket

Ramblin' Wreck
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855
Well...every D3 and D2 school for started since none of them have any D1 national titles. Boise for sure...A&M, Washington...this list is kind of a joke. It’s supposed to be all time right? How do you justify the Ivy League schools with how good they were on the front end, the Boise’s and FSU’s for how good they were on the back end, bust discount how good we were in the middle.

Why should absolutely dominant D2s and D3s be ranked lower? They’ve fared way better against their peers than we have against ours.

Boise State going from a Junior College to FBS school and being successful all the way is pretty dang impressive.

A&M has more wins and a higher winning percentage.

Washington has one less win but a substantially higher winning percentage.

We were basically Baylor from 64-89 ( maybe 96 barring a miracle season) And we’ve been Kansas State since 2002.
 

bke1984

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Why should absolutely dominant D2s and D3s be ranked lower? They’ve fared way better against their peers than we have against ours.

Boise State going from a Junior College to FBS school and being successful all the way is pretty dang impressive.

A&M has more wins and a higher winning percentage.

Washington has one less win but a substantially higher winning percentage.

We were basically Baylor from 64-89 ( maybe 96 barring a miracle season) And we’ve been Kansas State since 2002.
Ok, I’ve been drinking, so this is a bit of a rant, but here it goes...

Should dominant minor league baseball teams be considered amongst the greatest baseball franchises of all time?

And what does Junior college fo FBS have to do with being one of the best football programs of the last 150 years. Impressive, sure...but better than winning four national titles? And not four in a row, but four in four different decades.

Same argument for a&m and Washington. Congrats on your wins. Do you have four titles?

You mention peers, so what about the strength of schedule? Did Washington play Alabama every year? Did they play Notre Dame every decade? I looked. Washington played #1 and #2 on the list a combined 13 times to our combined 88 times (16 for a&m). We are 21-28-3 against Alabama (much worse against Notre Dame...we’ve lost 29 of 35...but at least we played them). I’m pretty sure only Auburn has a better winning percentage against Bama for the teams they played regularly, and there’s only like 3 other teams with more wins against them (just barely...all in like 20-30 more games). None of those D2 or D3 schools could have done that

These are such ridiculously trivial rankings.

Oh, and we are like the 34th best team of all time, but the best player, best coach, and best assistant coach awards are all named after Tech guys...hmm, ok.
 

knoxjacket

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855
Ok, I’ve been drinking, so this is a bit of a rant, but here it goes...

Should dominant minor league baseball teams be considered amongst the greatest baseball franchises of all time?

And what does Junior college fo FBS have to do with being one of the best football programs of the last 150 years. Impressive, sure...but better than winning four national titles? And not four in a row, but four in four different decades.

Same argument for a&m and Washington. Congrats on your wins. Do you have four titles?

You mention peers, so what about the strength of schedule? Did Washington play Alabama every year? Did they play Notre Dame every decade? I looked. Washington played #1 and #2 on the list a combined 13 times to our combined 88 times (16 for a&m). We are 21-28-3 against Alabama (much worse against Notre Dame...we’ve lost 29 of 35...but at least we played them). I’m pretty sure only Auburn has a better winning percentage against Bama for the teams they played regularly, and there’s only like 3 other teams with more wins against them (just barely...all in like 20-30 more games). None of those D2 or D3 schools could have done that

These are such ridiculously trivial rankings.

Oh, and we are like the 34th best team of all time, but the best player, best coach, and best assistant coach awards are all named after Tech guys...hmm, ok.

Terrible take. Dominating your peers is impressive as a program. Are the Jacksonville Jaguars a more impressive football program than Alabama because they have more NFL wins?
 

GT_05

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Terrible take. Dominating your peers is impressive as a program. Are the Jacksonville Jaguars a more impressive football program than Alabama because they have more NFL wins?

All college divisions are composed of college athletes so putting Mount Union over Miami is asinine. Why should a team be artificially boosted because they play in a lower division?


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GT99

Georgia Tech Fan
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45
Terrible take. Dominating your peers is impressive as a program. Are the Jacksonville Jaguars a more impressive football program than Alabama because they have more NFL wins?

I think your looking at it the wrong way. I think the point was more that it's silly to compare teams at different levels. Yeah, it's nice to throw a bone to the lower level schools, but it kind of muddies the water in these rankings.

In general, they used subjectively determined evaluation criteria (which is clearly spelled out at the bottom) that are then objectively applied to all teams. Their criteria have a heavy recency bias, which is why we're low. If the "middle" 50 years of college football history counted as much as the most recent 50 years, we'd be much higher. I don't really have a problem with the criteria defined...but this is nothing more than water cooler conversation fodder.
 

bke1984

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I think your looking at it the wrong way. I think the point was more that it's silly to compare teams at different levels. Yeah, it's nice to throw a bone to the lower level schools, but it kind of muddies the water in these rankings.

In general, they used subjectively determined evaluation criteria (which is clearly spelled out at the bottom) that are then objectively applied to all teams. Their criteria have a heavy recency bias, which is why we're low. If the "middle" 50 years of college football history counted as much as the most recent 50 years, we'd be much higher. I don't really have a problem with the criteria defined...but this is nothing more than water cooler conversation fodder.
But that’s the strange thing. Princeton, Harvard, Penn all rank above us. Where are they in the last 50 years? It’s like he just picked and chose who he thought mattered and glossed over how good we were from 1905-1928 and 1945-1966, but then calls out others that were great in the early 1900s.

I mean we were the first team to attend and the first team to win all four major bowls. Where is that in the criteria?
 

GT99

Georgia Tech Fan
Messages
45
But that’s the strange thing. Princeton, Harvard, Penn all rank above us. Where are they in the last 50 years? It’s like he just picked and chose who he thought mattered and glossed over how good we were from 1905-1928 and 1945-1966, but then calls out others that were great in the early 1900s.

I mean we were the first team to attend and the first team to win all four major bowls. Where is that in the criteria?

I think most people are looking purely at national titles. Winning Percentage is the biggest overall contributor here - criteria copied in below. 2 of our national titles fall before the "poll Era" and are discounted by 50%. As I said, it's subjective criteria applied objectively to all teams. And no, I wouldn't include random facts like "first team to attend and win all 4 major bowls" as part of the criteria. :)

"
Dominance, 20% -- number of national championships
Peak strength, 20% -- winning percentage for best 50 seasons in program history
Since integration, 30% -- winning percentage over the past 50 seasons (1969-2018)
Early modern, 20% -- winning percentage over the middle 50 seasons (1919-1968). Mostly pre-integration and included some games against non-college teams
Pre-modern, 10% -- winning percentage over the first 50 seasons (1869-1918) *mostly pre-standardization of current rules and many games against non-college teams

Adjustments
National championships below the FBS level count at 50%
National championships before the poll era (1936) count at 50%
Winning percentages when a team was not in Division I are reduced by 10%
"
 
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