CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Four => Big Ten => Topic started by: medinabuckeye1 on February 24, 2026, 09:56:07 AM
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All data from College Poll Archive (https://www.collegepollarchive.com/football/index.cfm).
I've broken the 90 years of AP Polls into six 15 year segments and I will continue making a post like this roughly each week, one for each segment. Here are the previous posts:
- 1936-1950 (https://www.cfb51.com/big-ten/90-years-of-ap-polls-the-first-15-1936-1950/)
- 1951-1965 (https://www.cfb51.com/big-ten/90-years-of-ap-polls-the-second-15-1951-1965/)
- 1966-1980 (https://www.cfb51.com/big-ten/90-years-of-ap-polls-the-third-15-1966-1980/)
- 1981-1995 (https://www.cfb51.com/big-ten/90-years-of-ap-polls-the-fourth-15-1981-1995/)
Each post lists the top-25 programs from that 15 years as measured by total appearances, top-10 appearances, and top-5 appearances. For this week I'm displaying the top-25 from 1996-2010 along with all of the teams that are top-25 for the first 75 years (1936-2010) and for the entire 90 years (1936-2025). Starting with AP Poll Appearances:
(https://i.imgur.com/SDmRlQj.png)
AP Top-10 Appearances:
(https://i.imgur.com/inT9NQ6.png)
AP Top-5 Appearances:
(https://i.imgur.com/yEg4lwl.png)
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I'd love to focus on Ohio State's success in the 96-2010 period but the focus here belongs on VaTech and Frank Beamer. In the first 60 years of the AP Poll (1936-1995) VaTech was a complete nobody, they had:
- 44 total AP Poll appearances - That is roughly three every four years and was 68th nationally.
- 1 total AP Top-10 appearance - In sixty freaking years.
- ZERO AP Top-5 appearances - EVER.
The above actually somehow manages to understate Frank Beamer's impact on that program because he became HC at VaTech in 1987 and 31 of VaTech's 44 AP appearances prior to 1996 were under Beamer between 1987-1995. Additionally, their one and only top-10 appearance before 1996 was in the final poll of 1995 under Frank Beamer.
VaTech in the AP Poll before Frank Beamer (1936-1986):
- 13 TOTAL appearances:
- 9 in 1954 at 14-19
- 3 in 1956 at 15-18
- 1 in 1986 at #20
Then under Frank Beamer they were #3 in total appearances from 1996-2010. That is insane.
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Another thing surprising to me about 1996-2010 is just how bad Alabama was. They've been so good for so long now that it is amazing that they were only ranked about half of the time from 1996-2010 and that actually includes Saban's first four years and the 2009 NC.
Using the 15 year dataset is somewhat misleading in this case because Alabama wasn't ranked in every other poll from 1996-2010. They had four really good years, three decent to good years, and eight really awful years.
The really good years:
- 1996: Bama started #15, got as high as #7 and as low as #16 and finished #11. They were ranked in all 18 polls in 1996.
- 2008: Bama started #24, was ranked all year long, and finished #6. They were #24 in the preseason 2008 poll then demolished #9 Clemson and moved up to #13. After that they weren't ranked lower than #13 again until 2024 (after Saban retired).
- 2009: Bama started #5 and won the NC while never being lower than #5 all season.
- 2010: Bama started #1, was ranked in all 16 polls and finished #10.
The decent years:
- 1999: Bama started #20 and was ranked in 16/17 polls finishing #8.
- 2002: Bama started unranked but was in 11/18 polls and finished #11.
- 2005: Bama started unranked but was in 13/16 polls and finished #8.
The awful years:
- 1997: Bama started #15 but fell out after week-6 and finished unranked.
- 1998: Bama was only in 2/16 polls, they started and finished unranked.
- 2000: Bama started #3 but they were only in 4/17 polls and finished unranked.
- 2001: Bama was #25 in the preseason and week-1 polls and was not seen again.
- 2003: Bama made an appearance at #21 in the week-3 poll and was not seen again.
- 2004: Bama failed to appear in any polls in 2004.
- 2006: Bama failed to appear in any polls.
- 2007: In Saban's first season in Tuscaloosa the Tide started an finished unranked while appearing in 5/16 polls (all between 16-20).
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It's interesting to note which current powerhouse programs were pretty inept in fairly recent history, a la Alabama, as you note.
Clemson might be another example, not sure. Is there a program that was a powerhouse in that period and now is inept? USC? UGA was pretty mediocre 1996-2002.
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Is there a program that was a powerhouse in that period and now is inept?
VaTech. From 1996-2010 they were:
- 3rd in appearances with 207/251 or 82.47%
- 11th in top-10s with 90/251 or 35.86%
- 10th in top-5s with 44/251 or 17.53%
In the last 15 years (2011-2025) they fell back almost to pre-Beamer levels:
- 39th in appearances with 60/246 or 24.39%
- 48th in top-10s with 4/246 or 1.63%
- 39th in top-5s with 1/246 or 0.41%
From 1996 to 2010 they were one of the top programs in the Country but over the last 15 years they aren't even close to that.
USC?
They did drop off but the decline doesn't correspond as well to the timeframes I used so it isn't as stark when comparing 1996-2010 to 2011-2025.
The Trojans were extremely good from 2002-2009. In those eight years they were ranked in all but 1 poll, won two AP NCs, and finished in the top-4 seven straight years. Prior to that they hadn't finished ranked since 1995 and since 2009 their final rankings have been good a few times but they haven't had anything like the consistent success that PC had there, USC's final AP ranking from 2010-2025:
- NR in 2010
- 6 in 2011
- NR in 2012
- 19 in 2013
- 20 in 2014
- NR in 2015
- 3 in 2016
- 12 in 2017
- NR in 2018
- NR in 2019
- 21 in 2020
- NR in 2021
- 12 in 2022
- NR in 2023
- NR in 2024
- 20 in 2025
So in the last 16 years they've finished top-12 a quarter of the time, ranked half the time, and unranked half the time.