As part of The Athletic’s ongoing theme commemorating CFB over the first 25 years of the 21st century, Stewart Mandel released his rankings of the Top 25 programs (paywalled). He has Ohio State #1. Here’s what he wrote:
Only one program has spent nearly the entire century competing at an elite level — and it’s not Alabama, which was mediocre for six of the eight seasons before Nick Saban got rolling. Whereas Ohio State had only five seasons out of 25 in which it won fewer than 10 games (and one of those was an eight-game 2020 season). It’s won three national championships, played for three more, and craziest of all, it has been ranked in the Top 25 in nearly 93 percent of the 411 AP polls since 2000.
Over the last 25 seasons, Ohio State won 84% of its games; Alabama 78.1%. There’s a wider gap between 1 Ohio State and 2 Alabama than between 2 Alabama and 7 Oregon. At 80.8%, 20 Boise State is the only other program in Mandel’s Top 25 that won more than 80% of its games. It’s also the only program that’s not P4.
Here’s the top 25—remember, this is over the past 25 years, which might help explain some things (see: 15 Auburn).
- Ohio State
- Alabama
- Oklahoma
- Georgia
- LSU
- Clemson
- Oregon
- USC
- Texas
- Florida
- Michigan
- Florida State
- Notre Dame
- Miami
- Auburn
- Wisconsin
- Penn State
- Virginia Tech
- TCU
- Boise State
- Oklahoma State
- Utah
- Iowa
- Washington
- Michigan State
Do any of these surprise you? Are any ranked too high or too low? Are there schools missing? (A couple I could make an argument that Kansas State is more worthy than Michigan State, and possibly Louisville. Cincinnati deserves consideration thanks to Mark Dantonio, Brian Kelly, Butch Jones and Luke Fickell’s success but the knock against the Cats is that a lot of its wins came against G5 competition.)
Thoughts?
