The College Football Blog: 2009 Final Season Résumé Rankings

Final Season Résumé Rankings

1. Alabama 14-0 (1st)
2. Boise State 14-0 (6th)
3. Texas 13-1 (2nd)
4. Florida 13-1 (5th)
5. Cincinnati 12-1 (3rd)
6. TCU 12-1 (4th)
7. Iowa 11-2 (8th)
8. Ohio State 11-2 (10th)
9. Penn State 11-2 (NR)
10. Oregon 10-3 (7th)

Comments: So these are my final season résumé rankings for the 2009 season. With the year now complete, this list ranks the teams that had the best seasons in 2009. I had a very hard time doing these final rankings. For one of the only times all season I think it was harder to fill out these rankings than it was to create the power rankings. When so many teams have either identical or very similar win-loss records it’s just hard to sort out. It’s even harder to do something like this at the end of the year because so much time goes by between the last regular season game and the final bowl game. It was easy to pick a #1 team, as Alabama had by far the most impressive season. They were 1 of only 2 teams to finish the season undefeated and they did it playing in the toughest conference in the country. Just their last two games alone were impressive enough. In my opinion, Texas and Florida are the best two teams other than Alabama, and the Tide smoked them both on neutral fields to end the year. They also beat a Virginia Tech team that won the Chick-fil-a Bowl on a neutral field by 10 points. They beat a Mississippi team that won the Cotton Bowl on the road by 19. And they beat an LSU team that played in the Capital One Bowl by 9 on the road. No one else has 5 wins that are that good. Bama played 10 games against bowl teams--all from major conferences—and won all 10 of them. 6 of those 10 games were either on the road or at a neutral site. And Bama won 8 of those 10 games by at least 9 points. The Tide won each of their 4 games against non-bowl teams by at least 26 points. Bama had the most impressive résumé and it wasn’t even close.

The hardest team for me to rank was Boise State. The Broncos were ranked 6th in this list going into bowl season and I think you could make an argument for keeping them there even after they beat TCU to finish as the only undefeated team other than Alabama. It’s absolutely accurate to say that a team from a weak conference is going to get penalized in rankings like these. The competition in the WAC is nowhere near the level of competition in the SEC and the Big XII. It’s not as good as the competition in the Big East. And you know what else? It’s not as good as the competition in the Mountain West. Boise State ended up winning 6 games against bowl teams but only 1 of those teams was from a major conference. 3 of the bowl teams they beat were from the WAC and another was from the MAC. However, they beat two teams that went to BCS Bowls, allowing a total of 18 points to two of the best offensive teams in the country, TCU and Oregon. They have no losses and they have 2 great wins but the majority of their games came against mediocre or worse competition. It was just very difficult to determine how much value to place in the fact that they had zero losses while Texas, Cincinnati, TCU, and Texas each had 1 loss. In the end, my problem was that if I ranked 1 of the 1-loss teams ahead of them it seemed like I should rank all of the 1-loss teams ahead of them. That would mean keeping them in the exact same spot as they were before they won a BCS game against an undefeated team. It would mean ranking them behind a TCU team that they beat, who is also not from a major conference. It would mean keeping them 6th even though they won a game and 3 of the other undefeated teams lost a game. I wasn’t totally satisfied with either option. In the end, I was more comfortable going with the option of focusing on their perfect record more than their weak schedule, so I moved Boise State up 4 spots from #6 to #2 in the final rankings. Again, after the #1 team it was hard to separate the rest.

After ranking the top 2 teams, I had to rank the 4 teams that finished the season with only 1 loss: Cincinnati, Texas, TCU, and Florida. TCU could quickly be placed at the back of the pack because of their schedule. I dropped them 2 spots from 4th to 6th. They did beat 6 bowl teams but 5 of those teams were from non-BCS conferences. Florida beat 9 bowl teams, 8 from major conferences. Cincinnati beat 6 bowl teams from major conferences, including 4 on the road. Texas beat 8 bowl teams from major conferences. When you go back and look at, Texas really didn’t have a super win. They had a 3 point win over Oklahoma on a neutral field and a 1 point win over Nebraska on a neutral field. Florida won at LSU and crushed Cincinnati. Both Cincinnati won at Oregon State and at Pitt. At this point I was grasping for straws and decided to rank Cincinnati behind Texas and Florida because those two teams lost to the beat team in the country. So Cincinnati fell 2 spots in my final rankings from 3rd to 5th. It was tough to pick between the Longhorns and Gators for 3rd. Eventually I went with Texas because they were slightly more competitive against Alabama despite not having their QB for almost the entire game. Texas dropped 1 spot in my final rankings from 2nd to 3rd, while the Gators climbed 1 spot from 5th to 4th. I was totally unsatisfied with things after I finally had the top 6 ranked but I determined that no matter what I tried to do I would be conflicted.

The next step in the process was much easier. With Georgia Tech and Oregon losing in the bowls there were only 5 teams that finished with just 2 losses. BYU and Central Michigan were not in the mix because of their schedules so it was really only 3 teams and they were easy to rank. I already had Iowa, Ohio State, and Penn State ranked before the bowls and they each won games over very good teams so I just kept them in the same order. I moved Iowa up a spot from 8th to 7th in my final rankings. Ohio State moved up 2 spots from 10th to 8th. Penn State climbed back into the rankings to finish 9th in the final edition of the season résumé rankings.

I thought it was going to be difficult to find a final team to fill out the top 10 but it wasn’t. Oregon was my highest ranked 2-loss team going into the bowls and they lost to a great team in the Rose Bowl for their 3rd loss. Nothing that the other 3 loss teams did in their bowl games was enough to leap from the Ducks. Oregon stayed in the rankings but did drop 3 spots to finish at #10.


Season Résumé Rankings Notes: You would expect these rankings to stay fairly uniform late, as to have a great record at the end you would have to have a good record all season. But when I went back and reviewed these rankings I was surprised that more teams did not fall out during the second half of the year. I guess I shouldn’t have been that surprised, considering that 5 teams went into the bowl season undefeated and another team suffered its first loss in the conference championship game. I was also expecting to find that the first few rankings would look crazy compared to the end of the year, but actually 4 of the 10 teams in the first edition of the résumé rankings were also in the final edition. Of course there was no preseason edition of the résumé rankings and that made the first edition of the rankings less wacky. 4 teams were ranked in all 15 sets of résumé rankings: Alabama, Florida, Cincinnati, and Boise State. Only 2 teams were ranked #1 in the résumé rankings at any point this season: Florida and Alabama. Alabama finished #1 in the final rankings and they were near the top over the entire season. Bama never lower than 2nd in the rankings at any point. Alabama was 2nd in the first 4 rankings and 1st for the final 11 weeks. Florida was #1 in the original rankings and they remained ranked throughout the season. The Gators were 1st in the first 4 editions of the rankings but they dropped to 5th in week 5. They would never regain the top spot, ranking 3rd for 7 straight weeks from week 7 through week 13. They were #5 again in the final rankings before the bowls and they finished 4th in the final rankings of the season. The Gators were in the top 5 throughout the year. Boise State was 7th in the original set of rankings and they would remain in the rankings throughout the season. The Broncos climbed to 5th in week 2 and they never dropped below 6th the rest of the way. However, Boise State was never higher than 4th until the final rankings when they ended the season ranked 2nd. Cincinnati was 9th in the original rankings and they remained ranked throughout the season. They climbed to 7th in week 2 and they would never drop below 7th the rest of the way. They were 5th or better in the final 5 editions, getting as high as 3rd in the final rankings before the bowls. They ended the year ranked 5th. Texas was the only team in the top 5 in the final rankings that was not ranked in the first set of résumé rankings following week 1. The Longhorns were included in 14 of the 15 editions. Texas debuted in week 2 at #10 and they would remain ranked the rest of the way. Texas was in the top 4 in the final 9 sets of rankings and they were ranked 2nd for 6 straight weeks from week 9 through week 14. They finished the season ranked 3rd. TCU debuted in the rankings at #10 in week 5 and they were ranked in the final 11 weeks. The Horned Frogs were ranked 5th or higher for 9 straight weeks from week 6 to week 14. They were ranked 4th in 5 straight weeks from week 10 to week 14. They finished 6th in the final rankings, dropping below 5th for the first time since they first appeared in the rankings at #10 in week 5. The teams ranked in the top 6 in the final rankings (Alabama, Boise State, Texas, Florida, Cincinnati, and TCU) were each ranked in the final 11 sets of rankings and they were all in the top 7 of the final 10 sets of rankings. The teams ranked in the top 6 were the same for the final 6 sets of rankings.

The only team ranked in the top 7 of the final rankings that fell out of the rankings at some point during the year was Iowa. The Hawkeyes were ranked in 11 of the 15 sets of rankings. They debuted at 8th in week 4 and remained in the rankings for 7 straight weeks. They rose as high as #2, holding that spot in weeks 7 and 8. They fell out of the rankings in week 11 but they got back in at #10 in week 12 and they remained in the rankings for the final 4 editions. Iowa finished the season ranked 7th. Oregon was in the rankings for 8 of 15 editions, debuting at #10 in week 8 and staying in the rankings for the final 8 sets. They were ranked 7th in weeks 13 and 14 but they never got any higher and they finished the season ranked 10th.

2 Big Ten teams that did not spend a lot of time in the rankings ended up the year in the top 10. Ohio State didn’t appear in the rankings until week 13 when they made it as the #9 team. The Buckeyes were included in the final 3 sets of rankings and they ended the season ranked 8th, their highest ranking of the year. Penn State was the only team to fall out of the rankings early on and reappear in the final set of rankings. The Nittany Lions debuted at 10th in week 3 and did not appear again until the final edition of the résumé rankings, ending the year ranked 9th.

Georgia Tech spent the most weeks in the rankings of any team not included in the final edition of the résumé rankings, appearing in 8 of the 15 sets of rankings. Tech debuted in the rankings in week 7 as the #10 team. They would remain in the rankings for the next 8 weeks, never getting higher than 7th, and finishing the year out of the rankings. LSU was the only team to fall out of the rankings twice and get back into the résumé rankings a 3rd time. The Tigers were included in 5 of 15 sets of rankings. They debuted in week 3 at #7 and eventually climbed to 2nd in the week 5 rankings before falling back out of the rankings the following week. They got back into the rankings in week 9 at #10, fell out a week later, and then reappeared in the #10 spot a week later. They fell out of the rankings for good a week later.

USC was ranked in 4 of 15 editions. They were ranked 5th in the original résumé rankings and reached 4th in week 2 before falling out of the rankings a week later. They reappeared as the #8 team in week 7 but never got any higher and they were missing from the final 7 sets of rankings. Auburn was included in 3 sets of rankings. They debuted at #8 in week 3 and reached the #3 spot in week 5 before falling out of the rankings for good a week later. Cal was also included in 3 sets of rankings. They were 8th in the original résumé rankings and climbed to 5th in week 3 before falling out of the rankings for good the next week. Michigan was another team that made 3 sets of résumé rankings. The Wolverines debuted at 8th in week 2 but they never got any higher and they were gone for good by week 5.

Several teams spent 2 weeks in the résumé rankings. BYU was 4th in the original résumé rankings and rose to 3rd in week 2 before falling out for good a week later. Pitt had perhaps the most pedestrian existence of any team that made the résumé rankings during the year. They debuted at 8th in week 11, remained there for another week, and then fell out for good in week 13. Houston’s history in the résumé rankings was rather unique. They debuted at #9 in week 2 and then did not appear in the rankings again until week 10 when they were again ranked 9th. They fell out again a week later and never reappeared. Kansas was ranked 10th in week 4 and week 6 but was not included in any other edition of the résumé rankings. South Florida was ranked 7th in week 5 and 8th in week 6 but did not make the rankings any other week. Miami was the #10 team in the original résumé rankings but did not appear again until week 7 when they got back in at #9. They would not show up in the rankings again the rest of the year.

3 teams spent 1 week in the rankings. Somewhat surprisingly, Virginia Tech did not make the résumé rankings until week 6 when they debuted at #9. They fell out of the rankings the next week and were not heard from again. Finally, there were 2 teams in the original résumé rankings that fell out of the rankings the next week and were never ranked again. Oklahoma State was ranked 3rd in the first set of rankings but fell out the next week and was gone for good. Mississippi was 6th in week 1 but they were out by week 2 and gone for good.