College Football Nobility

#1
VFL-82-JP

VFL-82-JP

Bleedin' Orange...
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#1
I know, we've had this conversation before. In fact, we tend to have it about once a year, give or take. And it is always hotly debated how important recent trends are, how useful history is, whether the Vols are at the top, one tier from it, two tiers from it, falling like a rock, rising back to where we belong, etc.., etc., etc. :)

Here's how I see the college football world.

1614353891217.png

How do you see it?




Footnote for those wondering about some of the icons: Kings of Old == Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and Penn ... Empires are Bama, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, and USCw ... Kingdoms include the Vols, Clemson, Michigan, UGa, Texas, Penn State, LSU, Auburn, and Nebraska ... and the Principalities are A&M, Washington, Pitt, Miami, Michigan State, Army, Virginia Tech, Florida, Georgia Tech, Minnesota, and Florida State.
 
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#4
#4
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#6
#6
BigOrangeMojo said:
Florida is far ahead of us, Nebraska, Auburn.

Not sure ND and USC are empires in 2021.
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Voltopia said:
Clemson is an empire - that's a huge miss to me. How does Clemson not make that top tier? Weird.
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Only with recency bias. In the grand scale of college football over the past 150 years, Florida is still a newcomer to the nobility, and Clemson hasn't been great long enough to claim an empire.

evergreen15 said:
Army should be added to the Kings of Old, maybe Sewanee too.

Remembering the Iron Men of 1899
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Yes! I mean, I seriously thought of going ahead and shifting Army, Minnesota, and Georgia Tech left to the Kings of Old. They all had their greatest success more than a half a century ago.

And that's one of the most fun things about these kinds of charts. There IS movement over time...molasses speed movement, with the weight of 15 decades of the sport, but still movement...some teams are climbing up, some are falling down, and others are fading into the past.

Here's hoping we're climbing back up. At one point, we'd have belonged right beside Bama and the other imperial programs. God bless the General.
 
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#9
#9
Obviously the past 15 years or so has tarnished the luster of the program. Had we been able to maintain what had been established...with another championship or so...we arguably could be claiming Empire status...

At the moment we are as significant as a tiny village in the middle of Mongolia...
 
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#10
#10
Tman44 said:
Georgia Tech and no UGA? Agree with e15, Army is a glaring omission. USC is NOT an empire. I want to say something about UF but that would violate my policy of saying something nice about UF.
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UGa's in there, Tman, as is Army.
 
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#14
#14
VFL-82-JP said:
Only with recency bias. In the grand scale of college football over the past 150 years, Florida is still a newcomer to the nobility, and Clemson hasn't been great long enough to claim an empire.


Yes! I mean, I seriously thought of going ahead and shifting Army, Minnesota, and Georgia Tech left to the Kings of Old. They all had their greatest success more than a half a century ago.

And that's one of the most fun things about these kinds of charts. There IS movement over time...molasses speed movement, with the weight of 15 decades of the sport, but still movement...some teams are climbing up, some are falling down, and others are fading into the past.

Here's hoping we're climbing back up. At one point, we'd have belonged right beside Bama and the other imperial programs. God bless the General.
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I'm not going to put a lot of stock in results for programs pre-integration for how things look today. There have been huge population shifts as well. 50 years is more than enough time to see which programs are powers and which arent.
 
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#17
#17
bamawriter said:
Minnesota and Army should be moved to the "Old" category. Florida should be in any tier that includes Tennessee, UGA, and/or Auburn, if not above all three.
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I could absolutely agree about Minnesota and Army (and Ga Tech). Don't agree at all about Florida. You'd be right if we were only considering the 1990s and beyond.
 
#20
#20
Okay, here's a different mash-up, using the input from many of you above:

1614359894129.png

Moved Army, Minnesota, and Georgia Tech to the Olden Days, and have Pitt edging its way that direction, too...and a little bit Michigan State.

Up among the empires, I shifted Notre Dame and USCw so they're falling from imperial status. Notre Dame toward Olden Kings because of their long history, USC not having as much is going toward normal Kings tier.

Put Tennessee at the cusp of going either up or down, because we just don't know. Here's hoping we at least hold second tier, and maybe even start nudging upward.

Not gonna move Florida up any more than I did here. They're simply too new to the world of championship football (thirty years is not a long time, though I know some folks here are younger than that, heh).

I think it's a pretty good set of adjustments. How about you?



p.s. Here's the argument against Clemson being any higher than they are (and once you read it, you might agree I was generous putting them as high as I did):

Empire programs all have an all-time win percentage between 70% and 73% (Ohio State tops at exactly .730). Clemson is way outside that range, at 62%. As a point of comparison, the Vols are 67%, five percentage points better than Clemson.

The empire programs all claim at least seven national titles (Oklahoma is the least, at 7; Bama is the most, at 18). Clemson only claims 3. As a point of comparison, the Vols claim 6.

Clemson is even more of a Johnny-come-lately than Florida; recency bias--two national titles in the past five years--is the only thing that gets them up at the King tier.
 
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#22
#22
VFL-82-JP said:
I could absolutely agree about Minnesota and Army (and Ga Tech). Don't agree at all about Florida. You'd be right if we were only considering the 1990s and beyond.
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as far as Florida goes, in the 90’s we were kind of neck and neck. Since then, they have been beating our ass like a government mule. With multiple NCs to boot. How could they not at least be in the mix of all this?
 
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#23
#23
Ashevillevol said:
as far as Florida goes, in the 90’s we were kind of neck and neck. Since then, they have been beating our ass like a government mule. With multiple NCs to boot. How could they not at least be in the mix of all this?
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Colleges have been playing football 150 years. Here in the south, we've been going more than 120 years. A lot of what makes Bama and Ohio State and Oklahoma empires all happened when Florida was still one of the weakest teams in the SEC (and Vandy one of the strongest). Florida has three good decades, after nine sucky ones.

Even with one and a half bad decades, Tennessee remains much more of college football nobility than Florida. They'll have to be very good for a long time to catch up with Bama, Tennessee, Georgia, LSU, and Auburn.

That's my view, anyway. I tend to take the longer view of things.
 
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#24
#24
JOEY'S ALL VOL !!! said:
Virginia Tech ? Surely you jest ?
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Don't call me Shirley.

Haha.

Va Tech's all-time .606 win percentage is just behind Washington (.616) and just ahead of Texas A&M (.605). They are the 23rd-winningest program all-time in college football, with 756 victories. Not counting the Ivy League olden kings, we have 25 teams on this chart. The Hokies being 23rd-winningest seems to mean they fit. As much as Washington or A&M do, anyway.

I agree they're weak in titles, but they've won a crap-ton of football.


p.s. Florida is only the 26th-winningest, with 743 victories all-time. That's 13 wins behind Va Tech.
 
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