Oklahoma has rarely taken a year off from the top since Bud Wilkinson took over in 1947. That's because five of the Buckeyes' six coaches since 1951, from Woody Hayes to Urban Meyer, are either in the College Football Hall of Fame or waiting for the call (Meyer will be eligible in 2021). It will come as news in Tuscaloosa that Ohio State finished first in our rating since 1969. Ohio Stateīuckeyes fans are known to be demanding, but that's because they've grown accustomed to excellence. But Brian Kelly has the Irish knocking at the door again. The Hall of Fame coaches who carried the burden of working in his shadow - Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine and Lou Holtz - maintained Notre Dame's dominance. The genius of Knute Rockne made the Irish a national team in a regional sport. If you took a snapshot of the middle of college football's life - from its 50th anniversary in 1919 through its 125th birthday in 1994 - the Fighting Irish would be an easy No. Without Ears, Bear Bryant wouldn't have heard Mama call. Everyone wins there - except Ears Whitworth (4-24-2, 1955-57).
The Crimson Tide's history is a panorama of strength and longevity: From Wallace Wade in 1925 to Nick Saban five times in the past decade, four coaches have won a national championship. Bear Bryant won six national championships at Alabama, including one in 1978 after beating Ohio State 35-6 in the Sugar Bowl, where the team carried him off the field. With all of these considerations, we created a formula (noted at the bottom of the page) to rank college football's greatest programs across all divisions using one metric. And the first 50 years, for all they gave us, were just a shadow of today's sport due to large-scale scheduling inequities and rules and a scoring system that were still in flux. The previous 50 years (the middle 50) were less so due to segregation and some regionalized scheduling that still allowed for occasional games against non-college teams.
In our judgment, integration and scholarship limitations have made the past 50 years the most competitive the game has seen. Fortunately, the NCAA decided that issue for us with its official list of major-college champions.Īll season long, ESPN will celebrate the 150th anniversary of college football. While some early game outcomes are even disputed between teams, national titles are subject to far greater debate. Teams should be judged by winning games and winning championships, since those records exist all the way back to the early years. Our goal: Honor the accomplishments of teams across 150 seasons and all divisions, while rewarding successful programs at the highest level in the sport's most competitive era. Several months ago, our Stats & Information Group was presented with a huge challenge: to rank the top programs in college football history.
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