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Is LSU The Finest College Program Of The Decade? Excel Says Probably Not.
By Jay Busbee | January 14, 2008
Over the weekend, the Baton Rouge Advocate ran an interesting piece contending that LSU is the College Football Program of the Decade. They’ve got a decent enough case–two national championships, to start–but how do they really stack up against the decade’s powerhouses? The article gives good solid numbers, but numbers are boring–we need pictures, baby! So we figured, hey–what better way to assess the finest programs in the NCAA than through that drearily essential tool of middle-management sales conferences, Microsoft Excel? Get your cheap coffee and company-issued pens ready, and try to feign interest:
First off, let’s look at win totals from 2000 to 2007. (Click on the graphs for a larger, slightly more readable version.) If we assume 10 wins per season is the minimum benchmark for a college program of the decade, well, nobody meets that standard. Texas has hovered around 10 wins, as has Oklahoma, both only having one sub-10 season. USC started the decade slowly, Miami has fallen off the map, and both Ohio State and LSU have pinballed between dominance and submission. Verdict so far: not so good for the Tigers.
Next, we’ve got a chart of each team’s highest final ranking, and here’s where things get a little more interesting. Note that LSU has a pronounced upward trend toward the end of the decade, but then so do several other schools. (We used “26″ as the lowest possible value, since Excel doesn’t have a “Fell out of the Top 25″ category. You get the picture.) Also note that USC, after two straight unranked years, shot into the Top 4 and has remained there ever since, even sharing the 2003 championship with LSU. Oklahoma and Texas both have graph lines more jagged than O.J. on a polygraph, and Miami has plunged more sharply than Oceanic Flight 816. Ohio State? Well, except for 2002–which, incidentally, kicked off Miami’s slide–no matter how good they’ve been, someone else has been better. Such is the life of the Buckeye.
So what did we learn? USC’s probably got a better claim on “program of the decade” than LSU; Texas and Oklahoma need to just join forces and become the unstoppable Texahoma (or Okalexas), Miami needs a few more gun violations and felonious linebackers to spice things up, and Ohio State probably needs to take a year off and regroup.
Okay, so that’s that. We’ve got coffee and danish in the back of the room, and we’ll gather back here in fifteen for Frank to give us his thoughts on our Q2 numbers. It’s gonna be wild!
January 14th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Nice analysis, but I think it could be improved by looking at things like conference championships, BCS appearances and bowl game results. Using the final poll results can be perilous because often the changes are minimal, with only the top two or three teams shuffling around based on the results of the BCS title game.
Texahoma might be a great team, though I think we’ll sooner see the IDF playing hopscotch with Hamas.
January 14th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Steve–good points. If I were really going to blow this out, Sagarin-style, I’d have to bring in everything you mentioned, along with strength of schedule–which would tip the balance the SEC’s way–and whether or not the team actually plays in a conference championship.
January 14th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I believe that it’s Flight 815 not 816.
January 14th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Dammit!
January 15th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
I guess the lack of national championships excludes them from this list, but going by wins and rankings, the University of Georgia is certainly a top team from 2000 on. GO DAWGS!
January 16th, 2008 at 4:48 am
U of Louisiana-Monroe! Finest program of decade.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Conference championship games don’t prove a conference’s strength (nor do they prove a stronger schedule on their own), they prove a conference’s greed.
Anyway, I do love how rankings are the only things that matter to SEC fans typically… except when the rankings don’t go their way, then they decide it’s time to use something else. Here’s a clue, though… USC’s strength of schedule over the last few years is pretty darn good.
January 16th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Thanks for the comment, Nick. I think it’s pretty clear that USC’s the class of the last few years. My strength-of-schedule comment referred to the SEC as a whole, not to any one specific school being better than USC. But, regardless of the motivation for the game, the Pac-10 and Big 10 dodge a hurdle that the SEC, ACC and Big 12 still have to clear in that conference championship. If we buy the bull that “every Saturday is a playoff game,” that’s the equivalent of letting some teams skip a round of playoffs entirely.