There aren’t too many college football programs that are on par with Ohio State historically, or over the last few years for that matter. You can make a case for maybe two or three others that are in the same stratosphere as what we’ve seen in Columbus recently.
So what if you ranked the college football programs over the last decade using a point system to determine which has had the best run from 2010-2019? Lucky for you The Sporting News did just that very thing. It used a point system to rank the success of college football programs, and we’re pretty sure you might be interested to know that Ohio State finished extremely high in its top 25 results.
Before we reveal where the Buckeyes finished, let’s first look at the point system used by Bill Bender of The Sporting News so that you know what we’re dealing with. It’s not an exact science by any means, but it at least puts some separating metrics out there. And unlike other ranking systems, at least we know what’s in the special sauce.
Here’s how The Sporting News broke it all down:
National championships: 10 points each
National title game appearances: 5 points each
College Football Playoff appearances: 5 points each
New Year’s Day Six/BCS bowl appearances: 3 points each
Heisman Trophy winners: 2 points each“Overall winning percentage, All-Americans and NFL Draft first-round picks were awarded with a poll style 15-1 score. Ties were broken by the team with the best overall record since 2010.”
Now that we have that out of the way, here’s where all of that broke down for Ohio State.
Next … where Ohio State ranked, and why
No. 3 – Ohio State, 90.5 points
What Bill Bender says
“The Buckeyes have put together an amazing eight-year stretch with Urban Meyer and Ryan Day. Ohio State has lost just one Big Ten home game in that stretch; a loss to Michigan State that prevented a Playoff run in 2015. The Buckeyes have the second-best winning percentage with the third-most draft picks in the past 10 seasons. The beat goes on in Columbus as Ohio State looks for a fourth straight Big Ten title in 2020.”
You can probably guess the two programs that finished ahead of Ohio State. It’s none other than Alabama at No. 1 (166 points), and Clemson at No. 2 (122). I don’t know that I’d have this much separation between these three programs, but at least Bender tried to look at it objectively using things that have substance.
Now, for the rest of the top 25 and points. Where is Michigan? Did it finish ahead of Penn State or Wisconsin?
Next … Here’s how the rest of the top 25 shook out
The Sporting News top 25 programs of the decade
1. Alabama (166 points)
2. Clemson (122 points)
3. Ohio State (90.5 points)
4. Oklahoma (76 points)
5. LSU (74 points)
6. Florida State (61 points)
7. Oregon (42 points)
8. Wisconsin (35.5 points)
9. Georgia (34.5 points)
10. Auburn (34 points)
11. Stanford (31 points)
12. Notre Dame (27 points)
13. Florida (21 points)
14. Michigan State (15 points)
15. Boise State (14 points)
16. Oklahoma State (14 points)
17. Michigan (14 points)
18. Washington (14 points)
19. USC (12 points)
20. Texas A&M (11.5 points)
21. Penn State (11 points)
22. Baylor (11 points)
23. Miami (11 points)
24. UCF (9 points)
25. Texas (8 points)
There are some surprising results there for sure, but a lot of it has to do with some lean years either on the front or back end of the decade for some of these programs. For Ohio State, let’s hope it can continue to crack into that upper echelon and make more of its opportunities to win a national championship than what it has over the last decade.
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