[Husker] College Football News

[Bapi Gupta]

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005, Steve Stone wrote:

> http://www.collegefootballnews.com/2005/Rankings/CFN_FormulaAllTime.htm

Huskerpedia posts a subset of the Sagarin all-time ratings, 1956-2002 
(someone needs to update this!):

http://www.huskerpedia.com/rating.html

I have a similar list that includes 1991-2004, with 1971-1972 added in to 
catch the earlier Husker '71 championship team.  (1970 Nebraska was 
nowhere near as dominant as 1971.)

http://www.bapi.net/football/college.top.html

All three of our list agree with NU '95 followed by NU '71 for the top two 
spots.  When you look back at those seasons and how many of the top 5 
teams each beat, and how badly, it's pretty clear.

For those of you who don't remember, 1971 Nebraska beat #2 Oklahoma (11-1) 
35-31 in the "Game of the Century" in Norman, beat #3 Colorado (10-2) 31-7 
(who only lost to NU and OU) and #4 Alabama (11-1) in the Orange Bowl 
38-6.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipsa/A0746841.html

The 1995 team, beat #5 CU, #7 KSU and #9 KU by a combined 134-48 with each 
of these teams finishing 10-2, with just a loss to each other and a loss 
to Nebraska.  In the Fiesta Bowl, Nebraska beat #2 Florida (12-1), 62-24, 
after the Gators beat #3 Tennessee (11-1) and #4 Florida State (10-2).

http://www.infoplease.com/ipsa/A0765429.html

In both seasons you the combination of a dominating Nebraska team facing 
the toughest opponents and dominating.


If you were to add Texas and USC 2005 to my ratings, you'd have:

Gupta Power Ratings for college football                      December 28, 2005

       Team Name              Points   Team     W-L-T   Points   Opponents  W-L-T

    1. Nebraska '95           378.66  12  0  0  1.000   199.79  75  50   2  0.598
    1. Nebraska '71           372.53  13  0  0  1.000   217.88  77  48   1  0.615
    1. Miami, Florida '01     353.52  12  0  0  1.000   209.66  81  48   0  0.628
    1. Oklahoma '00           346.80  13  0  0  1.000   212.07  87  57   0  0.604
    1. Florida '96            346.01  12  1  0  0.923   214.30  85  42   0  0.669

    1. Southern Cal '04       344.35  13  0  0  1.000   215.63  82  57   0  0.590
    1. Nebraska '97           343.34  13  0  0  1.000   198.31  76  62   0  0.551
    1. Texas '05              339.47  12  0  0  1.000   210.37  72  50   0  0.590
    1. Washington '91         338.77  12  0  0  1.000   194.21  70  52   2  0.573
    2. Miami, Florida '91     338.05  12  0  0  1.000   203.20  75  51   3  0.593

    1. Nebraska '94           333.89  13  0  0  1.000   187.87  78  58   3  0.572
    1. Florida State '93      332.75  12  1  0  0.923   212.37  91  50   0  0.645
    1. Oklahoma '72           331.95  11  1  0  0.917   212.45  76  47   2  0.616
    2. Southern California 05 331.02  12  0  0  1.000   206.77  72  50   0  0.590
    1. Alabama '92            328.59  13  0  0  1.000   199.47  78  56   2  0.581

I ran some numbers and neither Texas or USC can crack the top 2 even with 
dominating wins and strong play by their conferences in other bowls games 
(thus increasing their SOS).  While the overall schedules look similar to 
the top two, in terms of opponent win pct, neither has played so many of 
the top teams, and beat them so badly.  Nebraska's top seasons reflect 
years when we played half the top 10, but had a handful of non-competitive 
games.  USC and Texas have played more middle of the road schedules and 
haven't been so thoroughly Texas.  They also have struggled a little more 
than Nebraska 71/95 in some of their big games.

Bapi