Monday, December 3, 2012

College Football: The Top 126


Here, just in time for the Bowl Season -- it would have been in time for much of the regular season, but I lost my process notes and only recently discovered them in a suit jacket pocket -- is Michael5000's list of the major college football teams, in order of preference!  Now, if you are curious about which team Michael5000 will root for in any given college football matchup, all other things being equal, you can consult this handy list!  Moreover, if you have no college football loyalties of your own, you may want to print out this list and adopt it as your own.

This is, mind you, a provisional list.  There are doubtless errors and especially omissions.  If you wish to advocate for (or, I suppose, against) a college football program, or affiliate yourself with one or more of the schools represented by these teams, well, that's what comment sections were made for.

[If you are involved with a college's public relations department and have encountered this blog post by way of your internet spiderz, please be assured that a package of merchandised swag sent to the IAT offices would almost certainly result in a "bump" to your institution's standing in this list next year.  For shipping information, contact me at InfiniteArtTournament {at} gmail.]

The numbers following many team names refer to "Notes," below.
1. Oregon Ducks (1,2,5,6,8,10)
2. Oregon State Beavers (2,5,6,8,10)
3. Washington Huskies (2,5,6,9,10)
4. Stanford Cardinal (4,5,8,11)
5. Old Dominion Monarchs (7,13)
6. Idaho Vandals (4,6,10,13)
7. Oklahoma Sooners (8,10,13)
8. Utah Utes (4,5,6)
9. California Golden Bears (4,5,6)
10. UCLA Bruins (5)
11. USC Trojans (5,12)
12. Massachusetts Minutemen (3)
13. Boise State Broncos (4,12)
14. Washington State Cougars (2,5)
15. Hawaiʻi (Rainbow) Warriors (4,8)
16. TCU Horned Frogs (8,9;1)
17. Air Force Falcons (14)
18. Rutgers Scarlet Knights (15)
19. South Carolina Gamecocks (8,10)
20. Notre Dame Fighting Irish (12)
21. Arizona Wildcats (5,15)
22. Auburn Tigers (7,12)
23. Penn State Nittany Lions (12)
24. Colorado Buffaloes (5,6)
25. San Jose State Spartans (4)
26. Fresno State Bulldogs (4)
27. SMU Mustangs (12)
28. Arizona State Sun Devils (5)
29. Michigan Wolverines
30. Arkansas Razorbacks (6)
31. Michigan State Spartans (10)
32. Boston College Eagles (6)
33. San Diego State Aztecs (16)
34. Syracuse Orange(men) (8,9)
35. Troy Trojans (7,13)
36. UTEP Miners (10;1)
37. Wake Forest Demon Deacons (7,8)
38. Kansas State Wildcats (6,9,10)
39. Arkansas State Red Wolves
40. Purdue Boilermakers (8)
41. Maryland Terrapins (8)
42. Navy Midshipmen (14)
44. Oklahoma State Cowboys
43. New Mexico State Aggies (10)
44. Rice Owls (7,11;1)
45. Temple Owls (17)
46. Army Black Knights (10,14)
47. Missouri Tigers (6)
48. Northwestern Wildcats (9)
49. Kansas Jayhawks (1)
50. New Mexico Lobos
51. Tennessee Volunteers (9)
52. Ball State Cardinals (7)
53. Georgia Bulldogs (6)
54. Kent State Golden Flashes (8)
55. North Texas Mean Green (8;1)
56. Virginia Tech Hokies (10)
57. West Virginia Mountaineers
58. Iowa Hawkeyes
59. Miami of Ohio RedHawks
60. Utah State Aggies (4)
61. Nevada Wolf Pack (10;2)
62. Baylor Bears (7,8*;1)
63. Connecticut Huskies (3)
64. East Carolina Pirates (7)
65. Colorado State Rams
66. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (12)
67. Minnesota Golden Gophers
68. Ohio Bobcats
69. North Carolina State Wolfpack
70. Ole Miss Rebels (6)
71. Vanderbilt Commodores (7)
72. Wyoming Cowboys (10)
73. Clemson Tigers (7)
74. Pittsburgh Panthers
75. Duke Blue Devils (11)
76. Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders (18)
77. Tulane Green Wave (8,11;1)
78. Alabama Crimson Tide (11)
79. Akron Zips (4)
80. Bowling Green Falcons
81. Georgia State Panthers
82. Western Kentucky Hilltoppers (18)
83. Wisconsin Badgers
84. Texas State Bobcats (1)
85. Charlotte 49ers
86. Buffalo Bulls
87. Iowa State Cyclones
88. Kentucky Wildcats
89. UTSA Roadrunners
90. Marshall Thundering Herd (8)
91. Eastern Michigan Eagles
92. Illinois Fighting Illini
93. Indiana Hoosiers
94. North Carolina Tar Heels
95. Toledo Rockets
96. Tulsa Golden Hurricane (8)
97. Cincinnati Bearcats
98. Mississippi State Bulldogs
99. Louisiana Tech Bulldogs (1)
100. Texas Tech Red Raiders (1)
101. Louisville Cardinals
102. Memphis Tigers
103. NIU Huskies
104. UAB Blazers
105. Virginia Cavaliers
106. Western Michigan Broncos
107. Houston Cougars
108. Southern Miss Golden Eagles
109. Texas A&M Aggies (1)
110. Nebraska Cornhuskers (3,4,5)
111. Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin' Cajuns (1,4)
112. Ohio State Buckeyes (4,5)
113. South Alabama Jaguars
114. South Florida Bulls (1)
115. Florida Atlantic Owls (1)
116. Louisiana-Monroe Warhawks (1)
117. Texas Longhorns (1,6)
118. FIU Golden Panthers (1)
119. Central Michigan Chippewas (1,3)
120. BYU Cougars
121. Florida Gators (1,5)
122. Miami Hurricanes (1,5)
123. LSU Tigers (1,3,5)
124. UCF Knights (1)
125. UNLV Rebels (2)
126. Florida State Seminoles (1,5,6)

Notes

(1) Alma Mater
(2) Team is from Oregon or Washington
(3) Team is from New England
(4) General Regional Bias
(5) Member of Pac-12 Conference
(6) Have had pleasant experiences at town or campus
(7) College has amusing name
(8) College has amusing mascot name
(9) Team has appealing purple and/or orange uniforms
(10) College is associated with one or more people I like
(11) College has especially strong academic reputation
(12) Impressed by long-standing or historical excellence of football program
(13) Have arbitrarily decided to be a fan of team
(14) Team represents a military academy
(15) Team is associated with Mrs.5000
(16) Amused by long-standing haplessness of football program
(17) Program is associated with awesome old Bill Cosby comedy routines
(18) College is playing at a level comically "out of its league"

(1) Team is from Florida, Louisiana, or Texas
(2) Team is from Nevada
(3) Have had unpleasant experiences at town or campus.
(4) College has mascot name which, although arguably amusing, gets on my nerves a little
(5) Annoyed by long-standing or historical excellence of football program
(6) Program is associated with annoying fan hand gestures

7 comments:

mrs.5000 said...

This list is like one of those unwieldy post-modern novels that saves its best stuff for the footnotes. "Absorbing minutiae!" and "not for the faint-at-heart!" trumpet its fans on the back cover.

It would be amusing to see the schools on a map (I suppose you would code dots by size or color), to best capture the unabashed regional biases.

Ben said...

Nice to see the fruits of your labor on this project! Go Fighting Irish (and of course, Go Ducks)!

Michael5000 said...

Mrs.: Ideally, a Prominent Intellectual would be quoted as calling it "an intriguing meditation on the nature of human affiliation, identification, and self-construction."

Ben: Go Ducks! (and of course, Fighting Irish -- a mascot name, incidentally, which sits right on the edge of being amusing enough to get Notre Dame a green "8" footnote.

PB said...

I'd like to put a plug in for my grad school alma mater, UVA (my undergrad is not a major enough football power to make the list). I would argue that UVA qualifies for two of the positive notes on your list - it has appealing orange uniforms (see http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1005218-virginia-cavaliers-uniforms-wahoos-dazzle-in-orange-ensemble), and it has a strong and longstanding academic reputation dating back to its founding by Thomas Jefferson. Indeed (quirky bonus fact), professors are still addressed as Mr. and Ms./Mrs. because Mr. Jefferson did not have a doctorate, and surely no one at UVA would presume to place him/herself above him.

In all fairness, I would credit UNC with a strong academic reputation as well.

Michael5000 said...

PB: You make an excellent point about the orange uniforms, although I would like to see more consistency on this point. Academic quirk dating back to days of yore is certainly something to consider. We'll have to see how things settle, but I think you've kicked the Cavaliers up substantially, perhaps by as much as a couple dozen places. I am, for instance, quite sure I would root for them if they were to play Toledo right this instant.

Dug said...

My guide to picking teams in the rare event where there's no bias involved is as follows:

1. Public school over private

2. Private school over religious school

3. Religious school over military academy.

However I'm becoming less knee jerk anti-military and more knee jerk anti-religion so I've often flip #3. Either way I'm still a knee jerk.

Not much love for the KU Jayhawks, eh?

Michael5000 said...

It's good to have a plan, is the main thing. In theory, we could now sim a round-robin all-school tournament, and see how often you and I would be on the same side and how often we would be hurling manly insults at each other. Go Air Force!

My adult interest in football kicked off (heh heh) about a year and a half after I left KU, and at that time I knew more K-State people than KU people. Also, on the whole I didn't have a great time at KU. For what it's worth, I believe the Dug factor that is missing for Kansas is diffused into the relatively high rankings of UMass, BC, and Penn State.