This was submitted by a Michigan fan to the Hawkeye forum. He was wanting to make sure we knew "our place" in the world. I can't confirm it's accuracy, but it was of interest. Here is a list of schools who have been ranked in the final AP poll at least ten times over the past 25 years (# of times ranked is at the left): 23 – Miami, Michigan, Nebraska 22 – Florida State 18 – Ohio State 16 – Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Penn State, Tennessee 15 – Oklahoma 14 - Alabama 13 – Iowa, Notre Dame, Texas, Southern Cal, Washington 11 – LSU 10 – BYU, UCLA
Do that list over the past 50 years and see who goes up. And who goes down. This time period missed the top-10 years of Dietzel and McClendon and includes LSU's worst period of losing under Archer and Hallman. Go back to 1955 and it would include the many losing years at Florida and Florida State before Bowden and Spurrier came. Where is a stat guy when you need him?
http://www.secsports.com/index.php?s=&change_well_id=2&url_article_id=3891 The SEC website has a similar AP poll history, except it goes back to the beginning of the AP Poll. Unfortunately, it makes Michigan look even better. However, you should note that only 3 Big Ten schools are in the all-time top 20, meaning that year-in year-out Michigan has an easier schedule than the average SEC team, which has to compete with 7 all-time top 20 teams.
Ain't the new math great!! Personally, living in the present works fine for me. Can we just get this season started?
There's no doubt that Miami and FSU are Johnny come lately's in college football but it does show who has been at the top over the last 1/4 of a century. We don't always need to change something just to improve LSU's stature.
Volmania beat me to it. The Big 10 was actually the Big 2 (Michigan and Ohio State) until the 90's rolled around and teams started catching up to them. Iowa had some good runs in the mid/late 80's and Illinois had a good year or two mixed in there but Michigan would never had won that much in the SEC over that same time period.
