Best ten-year spans in the modern era of college football

[JTrain]

The Bama Dynasty thread got me looking into this. I considered the modern era to begin in 1944, when most of the big dogs started up football again near the end of the war. These are sorted by winning percentage, not necessarily greatest to least great.

 

I only considered overlapping spans if at least five (half) of the seasons did not overlap (thus, Nebraska 87-96 and 92-01 both made the list). I am counting conference co-championships whenever the conference did not hold a championship game. I will not be counting national championships crowned prior to a bowl loss, because that is silly to me.

 

I'm still working on filling in many of the blanks but I figured I'd share at least what I have so far. I'd also like to add computer rankings, and James Howell's are the only ones I know of that publish results prior to the '90s. If you know of others, let me know.

 

 

Thanks to Chris Stassen (http://football.stassen.com/), James Howell (http://www.jhowell.net/cf/cfindex.htm) and Mike Gardner (http://www.mghelmets.com/)

[krc1995]

noticeably absent are USC of the mid 00's and Alabama of current. I would have thought the would have both been on this list. Are you going to only use the win/loss % to rank the teams or are you going to weight a score that factors in championships? If your not going to use weighted scores then maybe a decade by decade listing would be more appropriate? I also think it misrepresents to overlap when it's the best decade CFB. Not to criticize your hard work,it's interesting stuff

[jsneb83]

Why do some teams have stats for the AP poll, but most do not? Or is that the stuff you were working on?

[JTrain]

noticeably absent are USC of the mid 00's and Alabama of current. I would have thought the would have both been on this list. Are you going to only use the win/loss % to rank the teams or are you going to weight a score that factors in championships? If your not going to use weighted scores then maybe a decade by decade listing would be more appropriate? I also think it misrepresents to overlap when it's the best decade CFB. Not to criticize your hard work,it's interesting stuff

 

These are the top 15 by winning percentage. Within those I may make a formula to try to rank their greatness compared to one another.

 

USC and Alabama both had/have great runs, but even without the forfeited wins due to NCAA violation, they don't make the list based on winning percentage.

 

Alabama's best run (before wins were forfeited) was 2004-2013: 101-30 (77.992%)

 

USC's best run was (before wins were forfeited) was 2002-2011: 109-20 (84.496%)

 

So USC's run was very close (pre-forfeits) but just barely missed the top 15. Bama's was still a ways off due to seasons with 6 or 7 losses in '04, '06 and '07.

[JTrain]

Why do some teams have stats for the AP poll, but most do not? Or is that the stuff you were working on?

[Mavric]

Since I don't really count Boise St due to competition level, it's interesting that no one else in the top 14 extend past 2001. Even the aforementioned USC and Alabama runs don't get there, and Alabama isn't even close. There are three mostly in the 70s, one split between the 80s and 90s, three mostly in the 90s and only Texas in the 00s (checking in at #15). The other seven are all pre-70s A great example of how the game has changed and how much harder it is now to stay at the top.

 

Excellent work, JTrain. +1

[JTrain]

Since I don't really count Boise St due to competition level, it's interesting that no one else in the top 14 extend past 2001. Even the aforementioned USC and Alabama runs don't get there, and Alabama isn't even close. There are three mostly in the 70s, one split between the 80s and 90s, three mostly in the 90s and only Texas in the 00s (checking in at #15). The other seven are all pre-70s A great example of how the game has changed and how much harder it is now to stay at the top.

 

Excellent work, JTrain. +1

 

Thanks.

 

It is true that hitting that elite 85% number became very difficult after the 85 scholarship limit. But the numbers seem to show that it is still very possible to be consistently great for a decade span. Compare the number of teams that hit the listed thresholds for the '00s decade to the previous four:

 

 

Side note: Nebraska was 15th in the 60s, 4th in the 70s, 1st in the 80s and 2nd in the 90s.