Top Tiers of College Football

[BamaDude]

Just listing the top three tiers (since the onset of the College Football Playoffs):

Tier 1
Alabama (6 playoff appearances, 5 finals, 3 national titles, 1 undefeated season)
Clemson (6 playoff appearances, 2 finals, 1 national title, 1 undefeated season)
Ohio St. (4 playoff appearances, 2 finals, 1 national title)

Tier 2
Oklahoma (4 playoff appearances, 0 finals)
LSU (1 playoff appearance, 1 finals, 1 national title, 1 undefeated season)
Georgia ( 1 playoff appearance, 1 finals)*

Tier 3
Oregon (1 playoff appearance, 1 finals)*
UCF (0 playoff appearances, 1 undefeated season, 1 win against a team that beat two playoff finalists in the same season)
Auburn (0 playoff appearances, beat both teams that made the finals in 2017, 2019 Iron Bowl win kept Alabama out of the playoffs for 1st time)
Notre Dame (2 playoff appearances, 0 finals)

Note: * the difference in the ratings for Georgia & Oregon was that Georgia lost their championship game in OT & Oregon was blown out in theirs)

 

[blazer prophet]

I defined "Current", in the title as meaning the past few seasons. Last year was not a good year to judge the health of a college program. I chose the past 3 seasons as defining a current way of analyzing them.

Boise doesn't deserve to be anywhere near the 2nd tier. 10+ years ago, and argument could be made, not anymore. Here is my list (I'll just list the teams that matter).

These are off the top of my head, so I know I missed a few teams here, and I'm sure I'll want to rearrange a few of these teams, once some of you correct my errors...

Tier 1:
Bama
Clemson

Tier 2:
Ohio State
LSU
OK

Tier 3:
ND
UGA
UF
Wisc
Penn St
Washington
Texas A&M
Iowa


Tier 4:
UFC
Michigan
Michigan St
Miami
WVU
UNC
Oregon
Boise St.
UCF
Cincy
USC
Texas
Iowa St
Auburn

The Rest...

I have a hard time placing Cupcake State, errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, Boise State so high. If they played in a conference above theirs, they'd win 5-6 games per year.

 

[foster4prez]

Somewhat related. The Athletic's 24 "super schools" for conference expansion.

On the Wheel Of Realignment, only 24 teams are in the inner circle TV programmers: Dear Andy

Plus, couldn't leagues split off their football affiliation like Notre Dame ... and could Clemson, FSU bolt for SEC if ACC tries to expand?

theathletic.com

So let’s try to populate the list of schools that any conference should want. Remember, this isn’t based necessarily on on-field performance. It’s based on what TV programmers would want in their inventory. …

Alabama

Auburn

Clemson

Florida

Florida State

Georgia

Iowa

LSU

Miami

Michigan

Michigan State

Nebraska

Notre Dame

Ohio State

Oklahoma

Oregon

Penn State

Tennessee

Texas

Texas A&M

USC

Virginia Tech

Washington

Wisconsin

That’s 24 locks. These are the schools that any league should take if that school wants to come aboard.

 

[BamaDude]

Just listing the top three tiers (since the onset of the College Football Playoffs):

Tier 1
Alabama (6 playoff appearances, 5 finals, 3 national titles, 1 undefeated season)
Clemson (6 playoff appearances, 4 finals, 2 national titles, 1 undefeated season)
Ohio St. (4 playoff appearances, 2 finals, 1 national title)

Tier 2
Oklahoma (4 playoff appearances, 0 finals)
LSU (1 playoff appearance, 1 finals, 1 national title, 1 undefeated season)
Georgia ( 1 playoff appearance, 1 finals)*

Tier 3
Oregon (1 playoff appearance, 1 finals)*
UCF (0 playoff appearances, 1 undefeated season, 1 win against a team that beat two playoff finalists in the same season)
Auburn (0 playoff appearances, beat both teams that made the finals in 2017, 2019 Iron Bowl win kept Alabama out of the playoffs for 1st time)
Notre Dame (2 playoff appearances, 0 finals)

Note: * the difference in the ratings for Georgia & Oregon was that Georgia lost their championship game in OT & Oregon was blown out in theirs)

Just correcting my notes on Clemson.