Top 10 Division 1 Football Teams -All Time

ok JD.  Which of the 10 teams listed below do you want to throw out because they only play in "garbage bowls"?  And I didn't say Ohio St. sent only journeymen OL to the NFL, you did.  Oh and championships?  Don't you play for something called the Big 10 championship?  Yeah, I thought so.  And as far as padding stats, 4 out of the 11 Big 10 teams have a less than a .500 winning percentage since 1945.  So 36% of your league wins are against teams with a losing record. In fact out of the 120 teams listed on the website, you play two every year who don't even make the top 100. (Northwestern, .355, #119 and Indiana, .384, #112)   That's worse than Duke and Rice in case you're wondering.  I wouldn't accuse others of padding stats. Here's the list.

1. Oklahoma

2. Penn St.

3. Texas

4. Nebraska

5. Tennessee

6. Alabama

7. USC

8. Georgia

9. Miami

10. Auburn

Here's a little advice for you.  Winning percentage and bowl records aren't opinion. And if you don't like my little poll, you can start your own based on mythical national championships, and exclude teams that you believe have "padded" stats, or play in "garbage" bowls.  I'm sure it will be extremely impartial.

So are the National Championships mythical? Then why are we even on here discussing football or watching the games if there is no ultimate purpose at the end of the season. The problem is the criteria rewards teams who are pretty good (with good winning percentages and win lower tier bowl games). That is why I chose the Holliday Bowl because it is usually the 2nd or 3rd team from the Pac 10 and Big 12. It is a good bowl win, but the criteria makes it count the same as a win in the Rose Bowl or Fiesta Bowl or Orange Bowl. That cannot possibly make sense to you.

When you look at all-time great programs one of the obvious things to look at is National Championships. Using the criteria of National Championships we could rank Alabama, Notre Dame, Nebraska, USC, and Ohio State right near the top. Does that make sense? Probably.

The criteria is not using all the information possible making the results flawed, that is the fact of the matter.

All I am saying is the criteria is incomplete and it is not the best way to judge all-time programs.

So your opinion that the National Championship is "mythical" makes it an invalid piece of information in evaluating programs of all-time? Seems incomplete to me that is all. The teams listed are certainly in the conversation, but leaving Michigan, Ohio State, and ND (amongst the top 5 in most wins of all-time) seems a little shortsighted.

So our opinions differ on the criteria with which to select the greatest teams of all time.  Fair enough, that's opinion.  But to argue that the teams that made the list got there by playing padded schedules or winning lower level bowl games doesn't hold water.  Each of these teams, I believe deserve inclusion and you appear to agree. 

Obviously, you could include National Championships and this is often done.  But doing this doesn't exclude any of these teams who have all won National Championships.  So even w/o including NC's, using winning pct and bowl record came up with excellent teams.  The other benefit of this was that there was no opinion involved.  NC's would necessarily introduce this into the equation.  Do I claim this is the absolute best way to pick the 10 best?  No, I don't know if there is a way, because any discussion of the "best" must include opinion, even if just setting up the criteria.  I just found it very interesting the teams that it came up and that only three (OSU, UM, and ND) were excluded.

Since you were responding to an Ohio State fan, who was talking about Ohio State players, I would say it is a safe assumption that you were talking about Ohio State.

You also seem to have lost track from the top of your post to the bottom. You started talking about garbage bowls and finished talking about garbage regular season schedules. Anyway, the Buckeyes are already eliminated from contention as best team ever, so why mention them?

Maybe I will start my own poll. not

However, if your poll was meant to be totally evenhanded, then criteria number three should have read "bowl winning percentage". Then people could have made up their own mind about whether those three programs qualified and why. Honestly, I wouldn't have listed Ohio State ahead of Michigan or Notre Dame even, but they all still deserve inclusion in the conversation, regardless of how obnoxious their fans can be.

Wrong again JD.  I was responding to a Georgia fan.   Well it doesn't matter anyway.  I did this to see what would happen if you ranked teams based on two impartial criteria, winning pct, and bowl record.  The results are what they are.  I didn't come up with this as a  way to slight your team.  You on the other hand don't like the criteria for the sole reason it excludes your team. Regardless of what the criteria are, you obviously feel that Ohio St should be included.  They weren't. They don't have a winning bowl record.  Get over it.   You and your brethren don't like it because your favorite team is not included.  So you've tried attacking the results based on other teams "padded" schedules, and supposedly "lower class bowls" .  You lose.  All of the ten teams played just as tough, if not tougher games than Ohio State.  Furthermore most of these teams played various different bowls instead of the Rose Bowl every year. 

Now if you want to argue that somehow Ohio State's bowl record is misleading,  like losttribe, at least that makes sense.  Losttribe my response to you is how many bowls were there from the 1930's-1970's?  Not nearly as many as today. Rose, Sun, Cotton, Orange, Sugar- not much more I think, maybe Gator?  So true, the second place Big 10 team didn't get to play in a bowl.  But the second place SEC, or Pac-10, or SWC, or Big 8 team probably didn't get to either.  The prohibition against consecutive bowls?  How do you explain Minnesota going to back to back bowl games in 61-62?

1. Notre Dame

2. Alabama

3. USC

4. Nebraska

5. Michigan

6. Oklahoma

7. Texas

8. Ohio State

9. Miami

10. Penn State

2001 Canes