Crusty
Living Legend
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First of all, I know there was no such thing as Power 5 conferences throughout the last six decades. However, I thought it more relevant to limit the data to current P5 programs. The data is from Wikipedia which references College Football Statistics and History | College Football at Sports-Reference.com.
I took the data from each decade, sorted for the current P5 programs and ranked the programs by winning percentage.
Here is where we rank from the 60's through the 2010s. I did not include the partial current decade.
1960's 14th .676
1970's 49th .414
1980's 30th .570
1990's 14th .696
2000's 59th .387
2010's 48th .468
Average 35th .535
I have included the summary table below of the 25 programs with the best winning records in each decade. It is interesting to see the rise and fall of storied programs throughout the decades. When I start feeling despondent about the program I remind myself that we are not the only historically good program to have fallen on hard times. Texas, Nebraska, Miami, Purdue, UCLA, Boston College, Florida, FSU, Georgia Tech. Missouri, and yes, even Rutgers to name a few.
There are far too many reasons for programs failing to maintain excellence to analyze here, but money and facilities is certainly not the factor everyone thinks it is, otherwise Texas, USC (Southern Cal), Maryand, Rutgers among others would be consistently at the top of the heap. Coaching alone is also not the only answer either. Take Texas for example. They have had highly recruited coaches who have won in previous stops fail to achieve the hoped for results. There seems to be some magic element of fit that is all but imposible to determine ahead of time. For every Matt Campbell, there is a Charile Strong, for every PJ FLeck, there is a Charlie Weiss. Go figure.
What we do know is that SU seems to be trying. In recent years, we have improved facilities (indor practice facility, dome renovations etc) and have paid up for coaches (at least to ACC competitive levels).
While it is hard to quantify, and we certainly have the occaassional stinker, we have proven that we can play in the ACC and in good years make the top 25. Hopefully, we will be very good in years when we have experienced upperclasmen throughout the dept chart. If Wake Forest can do it so can we (we already proved that in 2018).
Sorry for any typos or other errors. If you see any let me know and I will correct.
I took the data from each decade, sorted for the current P5 programs and ranked the programs by winning percentage.
Here is where we rank from the 60's through the 2010s. I did not include the partial current decade.
1960's 14th .676
1970's 49th .414
1980's 30th .570
1990's 14th .696
2000's 59th .387
2010's 48th .468
Average 35th .535
I have included the summary table below of the 25 programs with the best winning records in each decade. It is interesting to see the rise and fall of storied programs throughout the decades. When I start feeling despondent about the program I remind myself that we are not the only historically good program to have fallen on hard times. Texas, Nebraska, Miami, Purdue, UCLA, Boston College, Florida, FSU, Georgia Tech. Missouri, and yes, even Rutgers to name a few.
There are far too many reasons for programs failing to maintain excellence to analyze here, but money and facilities is certainly not the factor everyone thinks it is, otherwise Texas, USC (Southern Cal), Maryand, Rutgers among others would be consistently at the top of the heap. Coaching alone is also not the only answer either. Take Texas for example. They have had highly recruited coaches who have won in previous stops fail to achieve the hoped for results. There seems to be some magic element of fit that is all but imposible to determine ahead of time. For every Matt Campbell, there is a Charile Strong, for every PJ FLeck, there is a Charlie Weiss. Go figure.
What we do know is that SU seems to be trying. In recent years, we have improved facilities (indor practice facility, dome renovations etc) and have paid up for coaches (at least to ACC competitive levels).
While it is hard to quantify, and we certainly have the occaassional stinker, we have proven that we can play in the ACC and in good years make the top 25. Hopefully, we will be very good in years when we have experienced upperclasmen throughout the dept chart. If Wake Forest can do it so can we (we already proved that in 2018).
Sorry for any typos or other errors. If you see any let me know and I will correct.
