Continuing the trend of Top 25s from the past 25. New York Times recently did a Top ranking of programs this millennium. I think they give way too much credit for overall winning percentage where I'm a guy who thinks national titles are much more important. It's far off though and UW really fucked themselves by having such low lows.
Mine would be: 1. Alabama 2. Ohio State 3. Georgia 4. Oregon 5. Clemson 6. USC 7. Oklahoma 8. Florida 9. Miami 10. Texas 11. Oregon 12. Michigan 13. Florida State 14. Auburn 15. Notre Dame 16. Wisconsin 17. Penn State 18. Washington 19. Michigan State 20. TCU 21. Utah 22. Boise State 23. Oklahoma State 24. Virginia Tech 25. Iowa
Comments
USC living off those Pete years. But… #8?
Hiring doog legend Kirk Ferentz after Gilby, as opposed to hiring Ty, easily puts UW in the Top 15.
You think high or low?
Of the teams with an Owen this century, we’re #1!!!
UW's ability to make the Top 25 in this time frame with the pit that are the Gilby and Willingham years is a testament to how good we have been otherwise. Plus, most time slices you can do now with UW look good and is the teens-20-25, whether that's leather helmets to now, this millennium, CFP era.
UW has the resources, support, and willpower and should be top 15 in every metric moving forward
You have Oregon twice, at 4 and 11. I assume 4 is supposed to be LSU?
Correct, yes.
putting Oregon above teams that won multiple titles in that time period (usc and Florida) is Josh pate FS.
One thing I think this homeboy and others possibly do is create an equation and stick to it instead of just creating the list. I might overrate Miami because in my head sometimes I think they won it all in 2000 and 2002.
Putting Ohio State ahead of Alabama when Bama has 6 to 3 titles is laughable.
Oklahoma is way too high based just on overall record and dominating the Big 12.
I almost think you can't put a program that didn't win a national title over one that one even just one, but programs like Michigan, Florida State, and Auburn were so irrelevant for so long and only grabbed one that I think you can.
My first inclination is that it's too high considering USC hasn't done shit really from 2008-2024. But the Pete years were special for sure.
There’s gotta be some weighting done to account for early dominance like USC & Miami followed by mediocrity.
I think they’re just looking at average season over that time period, which isn’t the best way to do it. Winning a title should get bonus points. 14-0 v 13-1 with a loss in the title look similar on paper, but in reality the gap between those two is big.
The top 6 are really the only ones that don't have warts. One thing is I think pretty much any program that didn't win a title will trade places with one that did if it means they win even one, so you weight those really high. In my rankings, I would have UW #5 of teams that didn't win a title. On second thought, I'd put LSU over Georgia since I always forget LSU and USC basically split the title in 2003. It's also a crazy showing of the times that Auburn went undefeated in 2004 and didn't even play for the title.
I forgot about Auburn 04. That makes twice that they went unbeaten while on probation. Junior Bowden did it too
It just means more
Always forget Ohio State has one in 2012 where they were on probation for the dreaded Tattoogate. The Big 10 was extra ass that year though, they beat no one out of conference, and their depth chart doesn't look as good as most of their 2000s teams so dont' think they really have a claim.
I may need to go re-read the article to understand what I missed with Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma State and Iowa. I mean I know all those schools are usually good. Like 6-6 to 8-4 good. Wisconsin has more than the others but was also helped by having a shitty B1G West division for so long. At least TCU won a semi and Utah has a couple of undefeated seasons plus bullshit Pac-12 titles. Tech's title appearance with Vick was in 1999 so that shouldn't be included. They're kinda all the same to me (same with MSU) and even though we had a far worse stretch than any of them our peak years clear theirs easily.
Another metric to consider along with natties and win loss records is coaches fired or hired by an NFL team.
Has anyone ever seen Ferentz and Whittingham together?
Yeah, higher peaks with higher valleys over more sustained mediocrity. One thing this made me think of was how UW got zero breaks in the division format once conferences split to more division formats. We immediately got years of the best Oregon and Stanford teams in their program's histories and some of the best Coug/Beav/Cal actually while the South sucked and then when we got back on our feet all-time great Oregon teams.
I actually thought the Dantonio Michigan State teams were good though they probably benefitted from Ohio State sanctions and Michigan and Penn State mediocrity as well.