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FOOTBALL How hard is it to break into the elite?
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GabeDPowerMizzou.com Publisher
Thelast 12 national champs in terms of average recruiting ranking for the four classes that made up the roster:
2017 Alabama 1.25
2016 Clemson 9.25
2015 Alabama 1
2014 Ohio State 4.25
2013 Florida State 5.75
2012 Alabama 2.25
2011 Alabama 2.75
2010 Auburn 15
2009 Alabama 8.25
2008 Florida 5.25
2007 LSU 7.5
2006 Florida 5
TOTAL AVERAGE RANKING: 5.625
If you take out 2010 Auburn (which by the way had Cam Newton), the average ranking jumps to 4.773
Is it impossible to win one without averaging top 10-15 classes? Nah. Nothing is impossible. Missouri was a half away from a chance twice in that time span. So it's possible. But it ain't likely.
In fact, it ain't likely for anybody outside of about ten schools to have a chance. Here are the College Football Playoff appearances by school since it started four years ago:
Oregon
Florida State
Ohio State (2)
Alabama (4)
Clemson (3)
Oklahoma (2)
Michigan State
Washington
Georgia
Eleven of the 16 spots have been claimed by four teams. Nine teams total have made an appearance.
Now, that's not a real secret. The four teams that have made multiple appearances are probably the top four programs in the country right now. Michigan State would be the one that should give Mizzou fans hope. They're a good program historically. Great? Probably not. Better than Mizzou, but not elite by any means. So you can get in.
But here's the biggest thing: I have always maintained that college football is the only sport in America that has never really changed. The teams that are good now were good 50 years ago. And the system doesn't allow you to win a title by being pretty good over the course of a season and then being great at the right time like every other sport does. You have to be really good to great over the course of the entire season.
So just how unusual is it to crack the club? Here are the national titles over the last 50 years. The actual number is 59 because of split national championships in the pre BCS days:
Alabama (9)
Nebraska (5)
Miami (5)
USC (5)
Oklahoma (4)
Ohio State (3)
Florida (3)
Florida State (3)
Texas (3)
Notre Dame (3)
Clemson (2)
Penn State (2)
LSU (2)
Auburn (2)
Pitt
Georgia
BYU
Colorado
Georgia Tech
Washington
Michigan
Tennessee
43 of the 59 have been won by ten schools. That is 73%.
51 of the 59 (86%) have been won by 14 schools. All 14 have won at least two.
There have been eight one-time national champions. The most recent is Tennessee in 1998. Three of them occurred in 1990-91.
In the last 50 years, exactly 17.187% of the schools in Division One football have won a national title. Exactly 10.9% have won multiple national titles. Those 10.9% accounted for 86% of the championships over that period of time.
Here are the top four finishes over the last 50 years (which is basically what it takes to have a chance to win a title now):
Oklahoma (15)
Ohio State (15)
Florida State (15)
Bama (14)
USC (14)
Nebraska (11)
Miami (11)
Penn State (10)
Notre Dame (8)
Florida (8)
Texas (8)
Georgia (6)
Michigan (6)
Auburn (5)
Tennessee (5)
Clemson (4)
LSU (4)
Washington (4)
Colorado (4)
Arizona State (3)
Pittsburgh (3)
Oregon (3)
TCU (3)
Utah (2)
Michigan State
South Carolina
Stanford
Oklahoma State
Stanford
Boise State
Mizzou
Iowa
Oregon State
Virginia Tech
Wisconsin
Arizona
Georgia Tech
Syracuse
BYU
SMU
Arkansas
Houston
There are 200 potential spots in the top four (pre-playoff, I went with the AP poll, so there may be a team that was 4 in the coaches poll that isn't represented here, but it's close enough to give you the idea).
There are 42 schools who have had at least one top four finish in the last half century. That means 86 schools (67.18%) have never finished in the top four between 1968 and 2017.
Of those 200 spots, 73 of them (36.5%) were claimed by five schools (Oklahoma, Ohio State, Florida State, Alabama and USC). Add in Penn State, Nebraska and Miami and 105 of the 200 spots (52.5%) have been claimed by eight schools.
Fifteen schools have finished in the top five five times or more. That accounts for 151 of the 200 spots. In other words, 75.5% of the top four finishes have come from a grand total of 15 schools.
Expanding to all schools that have had at least two top four seasons, that gives us 24 schools accounting for 182 (91%) of the spots.
There are 18 schools who have had one top four season in that time frame. Of those 18, BYU and Georgia Tech are the only ones to have won a national title.
CONCLUSION: What's it mean? It means if you aren't one of college football's truly elite (I'd say that's your top 20 teams, who have each had at least four top five finishes--and I wouldn't include Colorado in that group), then you're going to be doing well to finish in the top four once every 25 years. And you're almost certainly not going to win a national title
