ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Over the past several years, I’ve developed a custom formula to help me quantify where Michigan ranks among college football programs since Jim Harbaugh returned in 2015.
It’s nothing fancy. I factor in overall winning percentage, conference championships, College Football Playoff appearances, etc. Teams are knocked for losing seasons and rewarded for double-digit wins. Conferences are weighted -- in other words, Alabama gets more points for winning the SEC than Utah does for winning the Pac-12.
I don’t directly factor in strength of schedule, but the conference multipliers are designed to mimic that in some capacity. The formula definitely isn’t perfect, but list it spit out passes the eye test. The ranking more or less aligns with how I would group these programs off the top of my head.
Remember: Each season since 2015 is factored into this formula equally, so while Georgia is obviously at the top of college football at this moment -- the last two national championships aren’t any more valuable in this formula than the two Clemson has won in this span.
Top-tier programs
There’s still a pretty obvious top tier of college football programs that have dominated over the past eight seasons. It’s a group of five, and it doesn’t include Michigan.
Four of them are pretty obvious:
1. Alabama
2. Clemson
3. Ohio State
4. Georgia
In the nine years since the College Football Playoff format was adopted, these four teams have won eight of the nine national championships. They have a combined 23 playoff wins, and the rest of the country has four.
Ohio State and Alabama have combined for nine conference titles over the past eight seasons while playing in by far the most difficult divisions in the sport. Clemson has had a much easier road, but winning a Power Five conference seven out of eight years is still insane.
I don’t think anyone would argue with this top four, but should the top tier include No. 5? It’s close, but I think this team belongs:
5. Oklahoma
There are a few key differences between the top four and Oklahoma. For starters, the Sooners have never even won a playoff game, let alone a national title. They’re also the only program in this tier to have had a losing season (6-7 in 2022).
But Oklahoma has won six conference titles in the past eight years while playing in a very strong and deep Big 12. It has made the playoff four times (one more than Georgia).
The main reason I’m including Oklahoma at the bottom of tier one instead of at the top of tier two: consistency. These five teams are the only ones that have won 10+ games six times over the past eight years, and they’re the only programs with winning percentages of at least .800 in that time.
No other Power Five team even has a winning percentage over .750 (Notre Dame is at .755).
The formula says Oklahoma is 13 points below Georgia and 101 points ahead of the No. 6 team, so it fits in the top tier.
Michigan’s place in the rankings
Whether or not Oklahoma belongs with the likes of Alabama and Clemson isn’t overly important when it comes to placing Michigan. Even if Oklahoma drops to tier two, nobody is going to argue Michigan deserves to be ranked ahead of a program with more wins, more conference titles, and more playoff appearances.
But Michigan did slot comfortably into the second tier, moving up two spots to No. 6 thanks to its 13-1 record in 2022.
6. Michigan
7. LSU
8. Notre Dame
This tier could have been extended to include a few more teams, but it felt more appropriate to separate this trio.
LSU is an interesting case, because it’s the only team with a national title that isn’t in tier one. The Tigers are basically being held up entirely by that one incredible 15-0 season, because otherwise, they don’t have any conference titles or playoff appearances since 2015.
But that championship season happened. And LSU is one of only 11 Power Five programs to win over 70% of its games in the past eight years.
The more interesting debate is Michigan vs. Notre Dame. Both resumes are nearly identical, except for the one obvious difference that always comes up with the Fighting Irish.
Michigan is 74-25 since 2015, and Notre Dame is 77-25. Each has five seasons of double-digit wins and one losing season. Both have been to the playoff twice and lost in the semifinals.
The reason Michigan is No. 6 and Notre Dame is No. 8: conference championships. There’s no good way to factor in that Notre Dame isn’t in a conference.
I looked at Notre Dame’s performance against the Big Ten just to see how the Irish might have performed in Michigan’s place. Since 2015, Notre Dame is 2-4 against the Big Ten East (1-1 vs. Michigan, 1-1 vs. Michigan State, 0-2 vs. Ohio State) and 3-0 against the West.
What does that mean? My personal opinion is that Notre Dame wouldn’t have a conference title if it was in the Big Ten East. And since my formula rewards conference championships, Notre Dame fell to No. 8.
Next-best programs
It was hard to pick a cutoff point for this tier. I considered including as many as 22 teams (everyone ranked 9-30). But I settled on these 11, and it feels right.
9. Penn State
10. Washington
11. Utah
12. Wisconsin
13. Michigan State
14. Oklahoma State
15. Iowa
16. TCU
17. USC
18. Florida State
19. Oregon
This is a wide-ranging group, but other than Oregon, you can separate it into two distinct categories.
- Extreme highs and lows: Michigan State, TCU, USC, Florida State.
- Year-to-year consistency: Penn State, Washington, Utah, Wisconsin, Oklahoma State, Iowa.
Three of the four teams in the first group have made one playoff appearance while also having three losing seasons since 2015. USC, the only outlier, has had two losing seasons and three seasons of 10+ wins.
Every team in the second group has a winning percentage between .677 and .713 because they’re consistently competitive year after year. The entire group has two losing seasons combined since 2015 to go along with 23 seasons of at least 10 wins.
Oregon made the first CFP championship game in 2014, and since then, has been a solid but not-quite-dominant force in the Pac-12.
Rest of the pack
I’m not going to break down all 66 teams, so I’ll just give you the rest in order. Some of the rankings surprised me (like Stanford over Tennessee -- really?). Others seemed downright wrong until I looked deeper into the data.
This isn’t exactly how I would rank these programs, but this is what the formula says:
20. Baylor
21. Pittsburgh
22. Florida
23. BYU
24. Texas A&M
25. Kansas State
26. Kentucky
27. Auburn
28. Washington State
29. NC State
30. Miami (FL)
31. Stanford
32. Wake Forest
33. Ole Miss
34. Tennessee
35. Minnesota
36. Texas
37. North Carolina
38. Mississippi State
39. West Virginia
40. Northwestern
41. Louisville
42. Iowa State
43. Virginia Tech
44. Arizona State
45. Boston College
46. Duke
47. South Carolina
48. Virginia
49. Missouri
50. Arkansas
51. UCLA
52. California
53. Texas Tech
54. Purdue
55. Syracuse
56. Maryland
57. Colorado
58. Oregon State
59. Georgia Tech
60. Indiana
61. Arizona
62. Nebraska
63. Illinois
64. Vanderbilt
65. Rutgers
66. Kansas
What does this mean?
The point of this formula is to show how Michigan fits into the wider college football landscape since hiring Harbaugh, because in the seven years before he arrived, the program probably wouldn’t have belonged in the top 40.
With five seasons of at least 10 wins, two conference titles, and a pair of playoff appearances, Michigan is one of the most decorated programs in the sport since 2015, and many believe this year’s team will be Harbaugh’s best.
If you have questions about specific teams on this list or why one is ranked over another, feel free to reach me over email (dhutchinson@wdiv.com) or on Twitter (@Derick_Hutch).
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