I’ve been out talking to the people and cajoling with the College Football fans; the season is just a few short weeks away and I have to say it feels great.
While I have been known as Miami Mitch for quite some time and was born and raised in Miami, I actually call the wonderful city of Chicago my home today.
I’ve been fortunate to live in different parts of the country throughout my life and it’s always great to see how deep team loyalties run.
While in Chi-Town there is a natural Illinois, Northwestern and Notre Dame fan base and loyalty we do find there to be many teams represented fairly strongly and emphatically by their fan base. I love it.
I have to say being a 'Canes fan isn’t always easy. While the trophy case in Coral Gables pretty much speaks for itself, Miami does have a reputation that runs far worse than it actually is.
While I’m not in full defense mode and will address graduation rates and the misconceptions surrounding them, as well as police blotter stats in my weekly Getting Real series, I want to talk about the game itself and what happens on the field, especially in the win and loss column.
One would think that it would be easy to figure out the 10 or 20 winningest programs of the past 10 years or so, but most fans aren’t even close.
ABC makes it sound as if certain teams are always on top and that a year with two losses is an aberration for those schools who usually reside in the conferences where they own the TV contract.
Well I think a lot of people are going to be surprised by the truth, and you all know that I’m just the one to spring it on you so here it goes: No team in Division 1-A college football has averaged fewer than two losses over the past ten years and only five have averaged fewer than three losses.
While Brent Musburger speaks as if Pete Carroll and USC play for the National Title every year or that Michigan is usually undefeated when they lose to Ohio State annually, this is far from being true.
Let’s take a look at the top programs of the past decade, as history and trends have a way of repeating themselves in college football.
10) Tennessee (93-34; .732)
The rivalry between the Vols and Gators continues, as the Vols knock the Gators from the Top Ten by having an identical number of losses, but the Vols managing one more win.
UT took home the National Title in 1998 and has only had one losing season since. It’s rare that I see the Vols projected near the top at the start of the season, but they have played in a January Bowl eight of the past 10 years. Pretty impressive stuff.
8 & 9) Michigan and USC (tie) (93-32; .744)
The Wolverines have been one of the steadiest teams making the list, while their best season was two losses and they only did that once (2006).
6 comments Last one added 11 months ago — Leave a Comment
Rob Sansing 11 months ago
Very interesting. Facts are so hard to believe sometimes!!!
I'd like to see that top 25 list. Would also be fun to run the numbers for the past 5 years. I'll bet it would be substantially different from this list.
Thanks for your time doing this research.
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Mitch at sportschatplace.com 11 months ago
On my site I have a link to the score of every game ever played by team and year. In any event it does look a lot different for the last 5 years and it looks different for the last 25 years as well. The game is so cyclical it's scary. It's amazing how people forget USC was a doormat until recently or that Oklahoma looked done during the Blake era. Heck, the Gators were winless at one point during the Pell era.
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Ron Jones 11 months ago
The big question is whether or not they can keep it up. For a while Kansas State was awesome...now...4th in the Big 12 North. I can go on and on about schools that were good for a few years...Oregon State, Iowa, Stanford, Washington, Northwestern, Marshall, Utah, Maryland, NC State, etc. They difference is the consistency year in and year out. 50 years ago the powers look very much like the powers of today sans Army & Navy. There are always a few teams that are good for a time but they lose a coach or something to that effect then all of a sudden you have a mediocre team. That being said I hope Boise does keep it up and maybe join up with the MWC and the MWC gets an auto BCS bid. But don't act like Boise State is a juggernaut. Hell Duke would be over .500 if they played Boise's Schedule.
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Mitch at sportschatplace.com 11 months ago
I just always find it interesting how the media makes us believe that certain teams never had a down turn and have always been good. They also make it seem like certain teams are dominant yet they aren't even among what amounts to the to 20% of all teams like Notre Dame and Penn State.
I agree about Boise and even some of the other non BCS schools like Utah and BYU but the real answer in that respect is a playoff system based on conference and region.
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Brian Hood 11 months ago
Florida St., LSU, Florida all winners of the BCS title, all not on this list, interesting
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Mitch at sportschatplace.com 11 months ago
I've decided to show the rest of the top 25. I'm sure the Alabama fans will say it's my fault they aren't on the list.
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