College Football Rankings Archive
The current system for ranking college football teams began with the AP Poll in the 1936 season. The UPI Poll was introduced in 1950, but was later replaced in 1991 by the USA Today Coaches Poll. Beginning in 1968, the AP Poll was released after the bowl games. The UPI Poll released final rankings of teams after the bowl games like the AP Poll in 1974.
Other polls and computer rankings have always been around, but the national champion has always been determined by who won the AP Poll and the UPI/USA Today Coaches Poll. If different teams won each poll, it was a split title that year.
Click a year below to see any season’s final rankings:
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1970′s:
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2010′s:
How Four Teams Should be Chosen for a College Football Playoff
by Roger Smith
2/23/2013
NCAA has finally decided hold a 4 team playoff to determine a national champion. I have been thinking this was what is needed for some time now and I would like to put forth a concept which would once and for all eliminate controversy and discontent by presenting a proposal for choosing the four teams which will have the opportunity to compete for a Nation al Championship.
Years ago, national champions were determined by the AP and UPI polls of sports writers and coaches respectively. Sometimes they did not agree which resulted in a split decision. This made everybody uncomfortable. Whereas the NFL has had a playoff system for half a century, college football has chosen a champion by election. Whereas in college football, the election made a subjective determination of who was best, the NFL has had the luxury of a single elimination playoff system to objectively determine a winner.
The first solution to this problem was to have a single championship game with both teams chosen objectively by a computer. While it sounded like a good idea at the time, the results have been less than satisfying and frequently been met with great wailing and gnashing of teeth. If computer programs were perfect the first time around, we would still be using our TRS-80s and Commodore 64s and playing Pac-Man. At best the computer program will always be a work in progress.
Academic requirements and the large number of college football teams have made a playoff system less than practical for the NCAA. When electing a number one team or even choosing two teams to play for a single game for a championship, there will always be teams which are left out who could make a legitimate case that they are the best team in college football.
By holding a 4 team playoff, if the right four teams are chosen, the team which wins will have beaten the best. Any and all runner-ups which might make a case for being in the playoffs would hopefully not have a legitimate claim that they were actually better and more deserving than all four of the teams included.
Given the money and emotion involved, there is an incentive for monkey business or at least the perception of monkey business in selecting the four teams to play. Therefore, the following method should be considered on its merit for choosing the teams in a way which is most fair, exciting and satisfying for all involved. Here is how it goes.
• The first seed shall be determined by the fans.
• The second seed shall be determined by the sports writers.
• The third seed shall be chosen by the coaches.
• The fourth seed shall be determined by the often maligned computer.
First seed would be determined by the fans as follows. This will not be a ballot box stuffing popularity contest like all-star selections. The first team will be chosen by a poll of 1000 qualified applicants. In order to be eligible to vote, fans must compete by predicting winners of each nationally televised college football game through out the season. Each fan would apply before the start of the season by texting a password to a certain number. Their cell phone number would become their account# and the password they texted will be used for them to log in to a website where they would predict the winner of each nationally televised game each week, straight up with no point spreads. A ranked list of all of the participants will be continuously available on the web throughout the season. At the end of the season, the 1000 fans with the highest success rate in predicting winners will have demonstrated their interest in and knowledge of college football and they will get to vote on line for the number one seed. This could be done prior to the bowl games if the championship is included in the current bowl system, or after the bowl games if the championship is done as a follow up. Based on the demographics, a city the size of Pittsburgh could expect to have on average 1 or 2 participants in the top 1000, with about 10 in western PA and about 25 in Pennsylvania. The excitement generated would be much like what comes from fantasy football leagues. Local newspapers and talk shows could interview fans in or near the top 1000 as the season winds down and bragging rights apply to those who qualify in the end. Each fan in the top 1000 in addition to getting to cast a vote would also get a plaque and a tee-shirt of something. The top 10 might get tickets and a trip to the championship game.
The second seed would be chosen by the sports writers. This could be done in advance of the fan voting provided that each sports writer identifies a first choice and also a second choice to be used if his first choice is chosen by the fans. In this way, no writer would lose a vote because his first choice was already taken. The results would be kept secret until the fan voting was announced.
In a similar way, the third seed would be chosen by the coaches. By going third each coach would have to provide a first, second and third choice in case his first two choices are already taken by the fans and sports writers. Also, by including the sports writers and coaches in this way, we preserve some of the old tradition of choosing the National Champion. Again, the result would be kept secret until the first two seeds were announced.
Lastly, for a totally objective choice, the much maligned computer by some predetermined algorithm will rank all teams and the top ranked team not already picked by the fans, sports writers or coaches would be the number four seed. When the computer was introduced in the BCS system in order to provide objectivity, it was much maligned when it produced results which did not agree with human perception (aka common sense). What could be better than having the computer’s choice play against the fans choice in the semi-final? Fans would have a chance to get their revenge on the computer. There would be much to talk and write about. Again the computer results would be kept secret until the first three seeds were announced.
By choosing four teams by four different methods, no team not included would have a legitimate complaint that they were unfairly left out. In other words, if the fans didn’t pick you, and the sports writer’s didn’t pick you and the coaches didn’t pick you and the computer didn’t pick you, then nobody thought you were number one, so just get over it and watch the game like everybody else. Whereas if there were a single committee choosing four teams, there would definitely be second guessing and accusations of favoritism or just plain stupidity regarding the teams chosen and the seeding.
Choosing four teams to play in a college football playoff as proposed here would be fair, satisfying and probably a lot of fun for everybody involved. Hopefully, the powers that be will consider putting a plan like this into effect.