SportsRatings: College Football

2013 Florida State: Where do they rank all-time, part III: Overall

Our previous two posts tried to answer the questions: where does this year's Florida State team rank out of team in the past 50 year by success and by strength. Now we combine the two answers into one final judgement.

The two previous rankings correspond to our two basic power ratings, Success and Strength. The Success rating measures a team's wins and losses using no margin of victory, while Strength uses pretty much only margin of victory to gauge a team's dominance.

Combining the two gives a better picture of how good a team is in historical terms. Some teams have great Strength but aren't consistent and lose a game here or there; the Overall power rating makes sure they "prove" it by having a great year against a tough schedule. Other teams, let's face it, aren't as good but they get lucky and have a towering Success rating but aren't dominant against their opponents. The Overall power rating makes sure that these teams aren't overrated.

So for what it's worth, here is the all-time (ok, past 50 years) Overall power rating Top 25:

#   Year Team                       Rec    Rating  Strgth[rnk] Success[rnk]
1.  1971 Nebraska                   13-0   87.29   41.21 [  6]  46.07 [  1]
2.  1995 Nebraska                   12-0   74.77   42.65 [  3]  32.11 [  7]
3.  1988 Notre Dame                 12-0   69.83   30.51 [ --]  39.32 [  2]
4.  2005 Texas                      13-0   68.29   41.07 [  7]  27.22 [ 12]
5.  2004 Southern California        13-0   68.14   35.95 [ --]  32.19 [  6]
6.  2009 Alabama                    14-0   66.91   29.27 [ --]  37.64 [  3]
7.  2013 Florida St                 14-0   65.93   40.91 [  8]  25.02 [ 19]
8.  1987 Miami (Florida)            12-0   65.65   32.56 [ --]  33.09 [  5]
9.  1973 Oklahoma                   10-0-1 64.69   42.36 [  4]  22.32 [ --]
10. 1991 Washington                 12-0   64.64   39.97 [ 12]  24.66 [ 20]
11. 2010 Auburn                     14-0   63.57   26.82 [ --]  36.75 [  4]
12. 1974 Oklahoma                   11-0   63.10   44.27 [  2]  18.82 [ --]
13. 2001 Miami (Florida)            12-0   60.63   39.26 [ 16]  21.36 [ --]
14. 1973 Notre Dame                 11-0   60.50   35.20 [ --]  25.30 [ 18]
15. 1972 Southern California        12-0   59.37   37.65 [ --]  21.71 [ --]
16. 1997 Nebraska                   13-0   59.37   32.42 [ --]  26.94 [ 13]
17. 2011 LSU                        13-1   59.15   32.71 [ --]  26.43 [ 14]
18. 1991 Miami (Florida)            12-0   58.68   29.24 [ --]  29.43 [  9]
19. 2008 Florida                    13-1   58.46   38.05 [ 25]  20.40 [ --]
20. 1996 Florida                    12-1   58.43   36.30 [ --]  22.13 [ --]
21. 2011 Alabama                    12-1   57.90   35.01 [ --]  22.88 [ --]
22. 1972 Oklahoma                   11-1   57.88   39.82 [ 15]  18.06 [ --]
23. 2000 Oklahoma                   13-0   57.15   29.91 [ --]  27.23 [ 11]
24. 2012 Alabama                    13-1   56.07   34.58 [ --]  21.49 [ --]
25. 1971 Alabama                    11-1   55.51   35.75 [ --]  19.76 [ --]

By this verdict, Florida State is the 7th best team of the last 50 years, a pretty lofty status. You can see that they're one of the few teams to rank in the top 20 in both measures, Strength and Success, and that puts them in rare company with the best teams of the last 5 decades.

1971 Nebraska comes out on top; we've covered how their 1971 season played out much like a playoff with Alabama (who finished at #25 here) and Oklahoma (who is actually at #26). No other team in the top 25 beat another all-time top 25 team (except 2011 LSU and Alabama, who each beat the other one once).

1995 Nebraska gives the Cornhuskers the top two teams of the modern era; they were one of the strongest teams at #3 and their 12-0 season was the 7th most impressive. 1988 Notre Dame had the 2nd greatest season by the Success measure and they were strong enough to end up at #3 overall.

At #4 2005 Texas is just ahead of 2004 Southern Cal interestingly; Texas beat the 2005 version of that team to win the national title. Next comes 2009 Alabama, the weakest team in the top 10; however, they finished 14-0 and beat an undefeated Texas team to win the BCS that year.

2013 Florida State is the highest-ranked team that gets its rating overwhelmingly from Strength. Their 14-0 finish was impressive obviously, but not nearly as impressive as other 14-0 teams or even some 12-0 teams, as their average opponent was somewhat weak. Still, it ranks 19th in our ratings and along with their #8 Strength ranking, puts them at #7 overall.

Rounding out the top 10 are 1987 Miami, 1973 Oklahoma (the highest-ranked team with a blemished record), and 1991 Washington, who split the national title with 1991 Miami (#18).

Though the survey starts from 1964, there were no '60s teams in the top 25, mainly because the bowl system was a mess back then. Many teams played just 10 games and often the best teams didn't go to a bowl game for one reason or another. Seven teams from the 70s made it, as that decade saw great disparity between the haves and have-nots.

Only two teams made it from the 80s as parity started setting in, but those two teams both made the top ten. Five teams from the '90s made it as well as six teams in the first decade of the 2000s as schedules expanded to a normal 12-game slate.

Less than half way through the 2010s there are five teams from the decade already. Note that three of them have 14-0 records which pumps up their Success rating, and that four of the five are from the SEC, which makes for a tough schedule (and therefore a higher rating if you do well).

What does the future hold? With the 4-team playoff starting, look for the winner to place very high on our all-time list. With two post-season games a team could be 15-0 with two big wins to finish the season, and that will make them worthy of consideration for the best team of all-time. Imagine a major-conference team going 12-0, winning their conference title game against a top team, then beating another 13-0 team to get to the championship game against another 14-0 team, and winning that? Their Success rating would be off the charts, and their Strength would presumably be very high to be capable of something like that. So 1971 Nebraska's days at #1 might be numbered.

2013 Florida State - Where do they rank all-time, part II: Strength

Our previous post looked at where this year's FSU ranks all-time in terms of accomplishment for going 14-0 against the schedule they played. This post attempts to look at a more difficult problem: where they stack up in terms of quality against teams of the past 50 years.

It's a tougher question because now you're really comparing different eras. It's one thing to ask how impressive it was for a team to win 14 games; it's another to say, how good are they, really?

Most people believe that today's teams would easily defeat teams of the distant past. The only question is, how distant? Certainly today's FSU would beat 1892 Yale. And 1945 Army. The 1950s Oklahoma dynasty? Sure. Doubt probably creeps in somewhere in the last 50 years. But today's players are far bigger and faster than the great 1970s...what about the 80s? 90s? 10 years ago?

We aren't even going to make guesses, but instead look at teams' Strength ratings, which basically tell how strong a team was relative to the current Division I-A scene at the time. Truly dominant teams will score high, while those that didn't dominate as much don't score as high. Winning all the games doesn't necessarily matter that much, but winning by a lot does, and beating good teams by a lot is critical. After we list the top 20 teams of the last 5 decades, we can speculate about how much "time-correction" should be applied.

Here are the top 20 teams of the last 50 years in our Strength power rating (offense and defense ranks are for that particular year):

#   Year Team                       Rec   Rating  Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
1.  1972 Nebraska                   9-2-1  44.92   46.01 [  1]    1.09 [  2]
2.  1974 Oklahoma                   11-0   44.30   48.17 [  1]    3.86 [  2]
3.  1995 Nebraska                   12-0   42.66   54.30 [  1]   11.64 [  2]
4.  1973 Oklahoma                   10-0-1 42.37   45.62 [  2]    3.25 [  4]
5.  1973 Ohio State                 10-0-1 41.37   43.06 [  4]    1.68 [  2]
6.  1971 Nebraska                   13-0   41.19   43.00 [  2]    1.81 [  1]
7.  2005 Texas                      13-0   41.07   53.74 [  1]   12.66 [  4]
8.  2013 Florida St                 14-0   40.91   53.23 [  2]   12.32 [  4]
9.  1970 Texas                      10-1   40.89   47.19 [  1]    6.29 [  5]
10. 1989 Houston                     9-2   40.50   54.28 [  1]   13.78 [ 15]
11. 1980 Nebraska                   10-2   40.20   44.37 [  2]    4.17 [  3]
12. 1991 Washington                 12-0   39.99   44.56 [  1]    4.56 [  2]
13. 1973 Alabama                    11-1   39.97   44.73 [  3]    4.75 [  5]
14. 1986 Oklahoma                   11-1   39.90   44.71 [  1]    4.81 [  1]
15. 1972 Oklahoma                   11-1   39.82   38.69 [  5]   -1.12 [  1]
16. 2001 Miami (Florida)            12-0   39.26   46.80 [  2]    7.54 [  1]
17. 1971 Oklahoma                   11-1   38.75   49.79 [  1]   11.04 [ 17]
18. 1969 Ohio State                  8-1   38.66   44.48 [  1]    5.82 [  8]
19. 1966 Notre Dame                  9-0-1 38.48   39.76 [  1]    1.27 [  2]
20. 1996 Nebraska                   11-2   38.38   45.55 [  2]    7.17 [  2]

This past season's FSU team ranks 8th best by this measure, the best of the decade so far and 2nd best in this century to the 2005 national champion Texas squad. They're 3rd-best over the last 20 years. So if you believe today's teams would clean up against teams of the 70s, the only question is whether today's teams can beat teams from 10 years ago, or even 20 years ago. If so, then Florida State has a claim to perhaps being the strongest team of all-time (though realistically, their nail-biting win over Auburn won't win many converts to that idea).

There are some big surprises at the top. The early 70s saw a lot of great disparity in college football as the rich got richer and the strong got stronger—you could have 100+ players on scholarship back then and teams like Nebraska, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Alabama took full advantage.

First on the list is an unlikely team: 1972 Nebraska, a team with 2 losses and a tie. They fell to 11-1 Oklahoma (#15 here), 8-3 UCLA, and tied 5-6-1 Iowa State! But they also had a 5-game run where they beat opponents a combined 278-7. They were erratic but on average, pretty incredible. After beating everyone so badly in 1971 (see 1971 Nebraska at #6) we have to assume some overconfidence set in from game to game the next season.

At #2 is 1974 Oklahoma, who finished 11-0 but couldn't go to a bowl game due to probation. So the best team that actually won a national championship is 1995 Nebraska at #3. That team is legendary for blowing out opponents including previously undefeated Florida 62-24 in the title game.

1973 had several dominant teams, including 1973 Oklahoma at #4 and 1973 Ohio State at #5. Each team had a single tie, but not to each other. The Sooners tied 9-2-1 USC that year while Ohio State tied Michigan, then went to the Rose Bowl and beat USC 42-21. 1973 Alabama also comes in at #13.

At #6 is a team often cited as the best of all time, 1971 Nebraska, whom we covered in the last post. 2005 Texas with Vince Young is #7 and rates the best of the century so far. Then 2013 Florida State, who dominated some very good teams and obliterated the bad ones, until Auburn took them to the wire. Before that game, they rated even higher, at #5 with a 42.20 rating, but the narrow 34-31 qin took them down a bit.

Now, from this list you can see that teams that have an incredible average game-performance rating often screw up in a game or two, which should disqualify them from being considered "the best". And from yesterday's post, it's clear that sometimes teams that aren't really the best get lucky and go undefeated. So in the next post we'll rank the top 20 teams in our Overall power rating, which adds the two results, combining Strength and Success to see who should really be considered the top teams of our era. Since FSU was in both lists they'll show up in the top 20 for sure, but where?

2013 Florida State - Where do they rank all-time?

Florida State just completed a 14-0 season and won the national championship, making them one of the better college football teams of all-time.

But just where should they be ranked among the elite teams of the past? We're going to try to answer that question.

First we'll look at what we call "success", that is, how their 14-0 record stacks up against other teams—not considering how talented or strong the team is, but just how great of an accomplishment it was to go 14-0 against their schedule compared to other teams. Though we could go back to 1869, we'll limit our survey to the last 50 years to keep things somewhat modern.

Using our Success power rating—which doesn't consider winning margin, just who you beat and who you lose to—here are the results:

#   Year Team                        Rec   Rating
1.  1971 Nebraska                   13-0   46.07
2.  1988 Notre Dame                 12-0   39.32
3.  2009 Alabama                    14-0   37.64
4.  2010 Auburn                     14-0   36.75
5.  1987 Miami (Florida)            12-0   33.09
6.  2004 Southern California        13-0   32.19
7.  1995 Nebraska                   12-0   32.11
8.  2002 Ohio State                 14-0   29.54
9.  1991 Miami (Florida)            12-0   29.43
10. 1998 Tennessee                  13-0   28.24
11. 2000 Oklahoma                   13-0   27.23
12. 2005 Texas                      13-0   27.22
13. 1997 Nebraska                   13-0   26.94
14. 2011 LSU                        13-1   26.43
15. 1978 Southern California        12-1   25.97
16. 1992 Alabama                    13-0   25.80
17. 2004 Auburn                     13-0   25.38
18. 1973 Notre Dame                 11-0   25.30
19. 2013 Florida St                 14-0   25.02
20. 1991 Washington                 12-0   24.66

Florida State comes out #19 here, and that's probably a fair shake. Not many teams have gone 14-0 so they definitely deserve kudos for that alone, and the more wins a team has the better they will score in the Success ratings. But their schedule wasn't the toughest by any means. They beat a good Auburn team, but the Tigers had another loss, as did the next best team (11-2 Clemson) that they defeated.

Compare that to the #1 team here, 1971 Nebraska. The Cornhuskers beat both 12-1 Alabama and 12-1 Oklahoma that year; Nebraska and Oklahoma also handed 10-2 Colorado its only losses, and Alabama and Oklahoma were the only teams to beat 9-2 Auburn, who beat 11-1 Georgia. Rarely has there been a year where the pecking order is so clearly defined, and Nebraska was at the very top of the pyramid.

1988 Notre Dame came close. They beat 11-1 Miami and 11-1 West Virginia, and 10-2 USC. They also beat 9-2-1 Michigan, whose only losses were to Miami and Notre Dame, and the Wolverines also beat USC. Miami was the only team to beat 11-1 FSU that year.

At #3 and #4 are two other recent 14-0 teams with much greater accomplishments: 2009 Alabama and 2010 Auburn. Both teams ran the table in the tough SEC, but more importantly they faced a dominant team in the final game, with Alabama beating 13-1 Texas and Auburn topping 12-1 Oregon. The Alabama team also handed 13-1 Florida its only loss, which gave them the slight edge.

Miami's 1987 team rounds out the top five. The Hurricanes beat previously undefeated Oklahoma to win the championship, and also was the only team to beat 11-1 FSU. Oklahoma and FSU handed 10-2 Nebraska its only losses. Again, a pyramid, with Miami at the top.

Not all of the team in this top 20 even won the national championship. At #14, 2011 LSU finished 13-1 with a loss to Alabama in the BCS title game, but they played a much tougher schedule than the Tide, and even beat them earlier in the season. Since victory margin doesn't count here, the teams were 1-1 head to head and LSU scores much higher due to their other wins. 2004 Auburn didn't get a shot at the national title but finished 13-0 and #17 here (the winner that year was USC, who ranks #6 here). The teams at #9, #13, #15, and #12 won split national championships, winning either the AP or coaches poll but not both.

So all in all, Florida State's schedule was pretty weak on average; they rank lower than every 14-0 team except for 2009 Boise State (18.50). The ACC wasn't great this year so there wasn't much stiff competition, with Miami and Duke being the Seminoles' only other noteworthy wins.

Next post we'll try to see how the Seminoles rank from a pure Strength perspective; in other words, are they actually better than many of the teams that rank ahead of them above?