All Time Power Rankings

BiggusDickus said:

Some guy ("DoogPassion206") created this product and has been posting it at Doogman. It's somewhat reality-based, and I thought it would be worth discussing here:

What Is It?
It’s an evaluation of all current FBS programs from 1946 to the present. The result was a series of graphs (which look vaguely familiar to my signature and the Pac-12 schedule posters which I’ve distributed to a number of you guys) that show the ebbs and flows that all 125 programs have experienced over these 67 years (obviously for some, the ebs and flows are more violent than others). I then calculated three separate average ranks in order to get them ordered properly from #1 (Ohio State) to #125 (Georgia State, who is playing their first year of FBS football this year). The three separate ranks are first, a simple avg SRS rank since 1946 (so each year is weighted equally), second a modestly weighted system (2012 = 1.00, 1946 = 0.34) and third a progressively weighted system, where recent years are worth significantly more than those of the 40s and 50s (2012 = 67, 1946 = 1).

Why use SRS?
Because things like W-L records don’t offer a nice apples to apples comparison of programs (conference strength) and things like the AP Poll (aside from being more flawed and less predictive than SRS) only offer an evaluation of a small sliver of the CFB landscape, when I wanted to evaluate the entire landscape (which means the unexciting act of differentiating between mediocre and lower-mediocre, and lower-mediocre and bad). Using a metric like this might be offensive to some Husky fans, as we are probably a more successful program from the trophy case perspective than we are from an overall consistent quality perspective. Some of our conference rivals will appear a little closer to us than we’d like to think they are, but I don’t have a problem with that because I do think things like SRS are a better way to assess overall program quality than a trophy case that can be based on somewhat arbitrary accomplishments (like Florida State beating Northern Illinois in 2012 in a “major bowl”). SRS cuts through all that bullcrap and noise and does a great job of assessing overall program quality, I firmly believe that.

Why start at 1946?
Because unless you want to be evaluating teams based on four game schedules and against opponents that have been long wiped off the map, you have to start somewhere. WWII was a cataclysmic world event that saw several major programs take complete seasons off (such as UW in 1943) and saw dozens of smaller football programs not last through the war. In the past, I’ve used 1960 as a starting point, but that was admittedly arbitrary. Picking a number because it is divisible by 10 is arbitrary, picking one that really is representative of a new era immediately after a major world event is less arbitrary.

The Graphs
In my opinion, the most progressive weighting model is the best. It doesn’t completely ignore what happened way back in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s but it weights those years at only a small fraction of the present day. Each passing year sees its weight increase by 1, so 1946 = 1, 1947 = 2, 1948 = 3, and so on until 2012 = 67. For us Dawg fans, 1991 is weighted 46.

What have you done for me lately?

He lost me at

"Because things like W-L records don’t offer a nice apples to apples comparison of programs"

I like to dig back to the days of leather helmet to make me feel better about my program.....

Stop it. Do you know how hard it is to take a bong hit while humming the theme song from "The Way We Were"?

HeretoBeatmyChest said:

DP206 is a good friend of mine.

His other power rankings (based on NC, major bowl wins, conference titles) have us 16th though I think we should be 14th. He gives Tennessee and Georgia a bump bc of the SEC.

These rankings I think are based on SRS ratings which he swears by. He constantly points out that SRS shows the 2009-2012 teams were no better than 2006-2007 teams.

The SRS ratings rate the UW 1991 team as the 2nd best team of all-time.

which team is best all time?

Oh, and on methodology, fuck WWII. The line of demarcation should be when the game was integrated.

DO you really want me to give a shit what a program was doing before that segment of the population, which some say added a little athleticism to the game (I know right?), were allowed to play? Give me a fucking break. Next you'll be asking to discuss some ass kicking Washington gave UPS back in 1934. I don't fucking care and neither does anyone else outside of doogdom.

creepycoug said:

HeretoBeatmyChest said:

DP206 is a good friend of mine.

His other power rankings (based on NC, major bowl wins, conference titles) have us 16th though I think we should be 14th. He gives Tennessee and Georgia a bump bc of the SEC.

These rankings I think are based on SRS ratings which he swears by. He constantly points out that SRS shows the 2009-2012 teams were no better than 2006-2007 teams.

The SRS ratings rate the UW 1991 team as the 2nd best team of all-time.

which team is best all time?

Nebraska 1995.

TierbsHsotBoobs said:

Nebraska only beat WSU 35-21 in Lincoln, so your argument is invalid.

Running up the score on #fuckingdreckfest doesn't impress me, even when one of the #fuckingdreckfest is a Nick Saban MSU team. Kansas tied for second in the Big 8 that year, that's how soft their schedule was.

All-Time Rankings superiority guy

HeretoBeatmyChest said:

TierbsHsotBoobs said:

Nebraska only beat WSU 35-21 in Lincoln, so your argument is invalid.

Running up the score on #fuckingdreckfest doesn't impress me, even when one of the #fuckingdreckfest is a Nick Saban MSU team. Kansas tied for second in the Big 8 that year, that's how soft their schedule was.

All-Time Rankings superiority guy

honestly, I can't say I've done a total run-down of the Big 8 then and the Big East then. I do know that among Pitt, VT and BC, that at least two of them were top 20-ish type teams. I fear (actually I know) that people out west have a milder version of bias against the other coast's teams as they do ours - by bias I mean they're kind of in the dark and have to generalize a lot. I used to struggle with this with Roy constantly. and my recollection is that the Big 8 had a few more good (not great) teams than it did traditionally (traditionally it's beyond arguing that the Big 8 was REALLY top heavy).

i'll just say this - you're right, that Miami team had a tendency to lose focus at times, but when they were focused, they made a joke out of everyone they played. A lot of people out west at that time didn't really appreciate how tough Blacksburg was to play at, and how good Beamer's teams were at home. They had, as I recall, Kevin Jones in the backfield and one or two pretty good receivers, and they were always fast and good on defense back then. Miami opened that game carving through VT like a hot knife through butter, but, as happened at BC, they kind of let VT hang around and then gave up some big plays and before you knew it, it was a real ball game by the time they woke up.

I guess Nebraska 95 didn't have that, but comparing the two teams, I'd give the nod to Miami. I just can't see a Nebraska I back running through or around that Miami defense. Not in a title game. Wilfork, McDougle, Vilma, Williams, Campbell, Joseph ... Crouch may not have been Frazier, but he was a damn good runner and he couldn't do it. On offense, Miami was so balanced and could kill you in the air or on the ground. Running backs, receivers, tightends, awesome O line ... they had it all.

Hard to say, and there's no doubt I am biased in part because I'm a Miami fan, and in part because I grew up watching Miami teams beat, and often decimate, vaunted Nebraska teams.

A lot of Husker faithful will tell you that the most dominant Husker team of all time was the '83 crew with Mike Rosier, Turner Gill, Irving Friar and an offensive line for the ages. That team, of course, lost to Miami led by a QB with a Jewfro and a # 20 on his jersey (which I always thought was against the rules).