Blue Blood Chart

[CousinFreddie]

Nevertheless ...

One could do a simple linear regression between overall win pct and either total weeks on the AP or total weeks in the top 5, and I'm guessing you'd get a significant relation (just eyeballing the teams in the upper right hand of that graph, those are more or less the teams with the best overall win pct, I believe).

So, you can nuance this and talk about details, e.g. either downward or upward movement in the polls during a season, but generally speaking this graph identifies the "helmet" and the "quasi-helmet" schools pretty well.

[847badgerfan]

Yep.

[847badgerfan]

It just dawned on me that in the past few seasons, my own school took down USC, Auburn and Miami in bowl games - all of which are to the right of where Big Red currently sits. The also took down Michigan and Nebraska this season, and Nebraska, MSU and LSU last season.

It's a good time to be a Badger fan. 


I just hope the fan base appreciates all of this, but I have my doubts because they can't seem to beat OSU these days. 

[CWSooner]

That chart has a distinct separation between Texas, at the lower-left corner of the the eight upper-right-most schools, and everyone else.

It might lead one to believe that those and those eight are the helmet schools.

[847badgerfan]

No doubt CW, but some are fading. Fading fast, in some cases.

ND would be the obvious example to me.

Maybe our own FTB-OBS can provide some insight from 1950-present, 1960-present, 1970-present, and so forth, up to 2010-present.

[FearlessF]

That chart has a distinct separation between Texas, at the lower-left corner of the the eight upper-right-most schools, and everyone else.

It might lead one to believe that those and those eight are the helmet schools.

yup, the Red N and the Horns have slipped the past 5 to 10 seasons
or there might have been even more separation
a little surprised PSU isn't closer

[CousinFreddie]

a little surprised PSU isn't closer

Yeah, I was too.  That Florida gator looks like he's about to nip those Nittany ears.

[CousinFreddie]

It does help display why some of the rivalries are so intense, like ND-USC, Mich-ND, OSU-UMich, OU-Texas, OU-NU, UF-FSU, Auburn-UGa, etc.

[847badgerfan]

How many weeks was FSU ranked this season? Let's see...

They started at #4, then 10, 11, 12, then fell out. So that counts for 4 freebie weeks in my book.

Michigan started very high too, and was ranked in 10 weeks this year. That's 10 more freebies for "big" blue.

[CWSooner]

Nice to see little ol' Tulsa there at the bottom left.  Tulsa is the smallest Div 1-A school other than the service academies.

[CousinFreddie]

Howard Twilley.  Steve Largent.

[EastAthens]

I would say UGA is a purple blood with a chance of turning bright blue in the next 20 years.

[847badgerfan]

I would say UGA is a purple blood with a chance of turning bright blue in the next 20 years.

I kinda feel the same way about my school, but we've had several discussions on the B1G board on this topic of helmets.

The consensus has been that helmets are what they are and pretty much will stay helmets unless they go Minnesota. It was also pretty well determined that schools that are not helmet cannot ever gain that status.

The helmets today are ND, Bama, Michigan, tOSU, tUSC, Texas and OU.

UNL, PSU and the Florida schools are on the fringe along with the usual suspects from the SEC (like UGA, LSU and AU).

Tennessee is poised to fall into the abyss (Minnesota), as is UCLA. UNL is getting close too. The common theme among these three is that they've gone a long period (almost two decades) without a conference title and they've been through coaches like we go through socks.

Except when we get rid of our socks, we don't have to pay them.

[Thumper]

Jerry Rhome.