The Greatest Program Of All-Time Is ...

The Greatest Program Of All-Time Is ...


"The AP rankings might be irrelevant since they don't have anything to do with determining a national champion anymore, but they're still great to use when analyzing college football on a historical scale.

The AP college football poll has been through World War II, changed and adapted with the times, and has often looked to make a statement when needed - like in 2003 by naming USC the national champion, even though LSU took home the BCS title..

Since the AP poll is the only consistent ranking system from 1936 through today, CFN came up with a scoring system to compare and contrast how the programs finished over the decades. Every time a team finished No. 1 in the final poll, it got 25 points. The No. 2 team got 24 points, No. 3 got 23 points, and so on with the No. 25 team getting one point.  Through the decades, the AP ranked the top ten teams for a few years before going back to the top 20 rankings, and eventually, it went to the top 25 system it's at now.

According to the scoring system, consistent production isn't necessarily rewarded. For example, if a team finished 17th for four straight years, it would get a total of 36 points (No. 17 gets 9 points). A team that finished the beginning of the decade No. 2 (24 points) and the end of the decade ranked tenth (16 points), but wasn't ranked any year in between, would get a total 40 points.

One fascinating thing to note: all the club teams that played during World War II. Notice the rankings of the all-star teams like the Iowa Pre-Fight juggernaut and the Bainbridge NTS powerhouse. In the end, though, the big-name programs you'd think would rock, did. There's a reason the superpowers of today got their reputations - they won.

However, things can change in a big hurry. When we did this in 2000, Notre Dame was on top of the world by a huge margin. Over a decade later and a following down period, things have changed up a bit. Also, one big year can change things up fast. Oklahoma was great last year, Michigan wasn't, so the gap between the two widened. Last year, OU was only ten points ahead of the Wolverines, 953 points to 943. Ohio State, Alabama and Notre Dame are closing fast, but one program stands as the far and away best of all-time - at least according to this formula.

So here we go - here are the greatest college football programs since 1936 according to the AP rankings.

1	Oklahoma	995
2	Michigan	943
3	Ohio State	941
4	Alabama	940
5	Notre Dame	932
6	Nebraska	782
7	USC	773
8	Texas	741
9	Penn State	665
10	Tennessee	659
11	LSU	584
12	Georgia	553
13	Auburn	550
14	Miami	528
15	Florida State	511
T16	Florida	486
T16	UCLA	486
18	Arkansas	415
19	Michigan State	403
20	Texas A&M	383
21	Georgia Tech	343
22	Washington	323
23	Ole Miss	322
24	Clemson	317
25	Wisconsin	309
	Others Receiving Votes
26	Iowa	302
27	Pitt	293
28	Colorado	258
29	Stanford	241
30	Army	239
31	Maryland	238
32	Arizona State	236
33	Minnesota	236
34	TCU	230
35	Missouri	219
36	Purdue	215
T37	Duke	213
T37	Virginia Tech	213
39	Oregon	204
40	North Carolina	199
T41	California	198
T41	Navy	198
43	West Virginia	194
44	Syracuse	191
45	SMU	184
46	BYU	178
47	Illinois	177
48	Kansas State	168
49	Houtson	164
50	Oklahoma State	146
51	Baylor	145
52	Southern Miss	143
53	Oregon State	139
54	Boise State	136
55	Northwestern	135
56	Washington State	131
57	Boston College	128
58	Texas Tech	116
59	Rice	107
60	NC State	105
61	Lousiville	102
62	Mississippi State	100
T63	Kansas	96
T63	Kentucky	96
65	Fordham	88
66	Santa Clara	85
67	Tulane	81
68	Penn	76
T69	Air Force	75
T69	Utah	75
T71	Cornell	68
T71	Miami University	68
T71	Tulsa	68
74	Virginia	66
75	Indiana	63"