How to Calculate the Greatest College Football Team Ever

Crunching the Gridiron Numbers

How do you figure out which college football team is the greatest to have ever played the game?

You'd have to consider wins and losses, of course. But 231 Division I college football teams have had undefeated and untied records going all the way back to Princeton in 1870. In the modern era (roughly since 1960) there have been 53 undefeated football teams.

So, what else?

Quality of opposition. This is fairly easy. Just look at the schedules played by various undefeated teams. Tulane went 12-0 in 1998 but only played 3 teams with winning records, including BYU in its bowl game. Tennessee obviously had a much more difficult path to its perfect record that year and was justifiably crowned the National Champion. In 2004, undefeated Utah was similarly maligned by its unchallenging schedule despite that the Utes were, by all accounts, a formidable football team. They finished 4th in the polls that year behind two other unblemished squads and a once-beaten Oklahoma.

So then how do you separate undefeated teams who played comparably tough schedules?

Domination of opposition. In 2004 both USC and Auburn ran the table playing similarly high-quality opponents. Without playing each other directly, voters in the AP poll were left to determine who deserved to be number one. (The coaches poll was obligated to crown the BCS Championship game winner as champ.) The media overwhelmingly picked USC and all they had to do was look at the last game each team played. Auburn won a three-point squeaker in the Sugar Bowl over Virginia Tech, whilst the Trojans annihilated previously unbeaten Oklahoma 55-19.