It’s been a long season. We’ve seen the polls go basically unaffected throughout the year with Alabama, Clemson, Oklahoma, UGA, and Ohio State all staying within the top 10 all year. Alabama was number 1 when we had LSU as the more deserving spot having beaten better opponents before falling to Florida and eventually Alabama.
Some surprises did come, however, with Notre Dame running their schedule and eventually falling to National Champion Clemson in the first round. Florida saw a resurgence under Dan Mullen and finished 10-3. Kentucky and Syracuse surprised everyone and had themselves nice 10 win seasons, and Washington State ended 11-2 and ranked in the AP top 10.
Army won 11 games and by the end of it all joined Cincinnati, UCF, Utah State, Boise State, Fresno State, UAB, Buffalo, Appalachian State, Troy, and Georgia Southern as the Group of Five representatives with 10+ win seasons. 6 of which finished in the final AP top 25.
If you only cared about a championship then this season was pretty boring. We didn’t have too much shakeup in the top 5 as in years past. Outside of the elite programs from across the Power 5 the gap between the rest of the schools and the best of the Group of Five seems to have gotten smaller. Parity is needed in sports to maintain intrigue and excitement and the final AP poll highlights this trend.
So without further adieu, this is how we finish the year:
- Clemson
- Alabama
- Ohio State
- Notre Dame
- LSU
- Georgia
- Oklahoma
- UCF
- Texas
- Kentucky
- Florida
- Washington
- Washington State
- Michigan
- Texas A&M
- Syracuse
- Penn State
- Fresno State
- Boise State
- Cincinnati
- Northwestern
- Iowa
- Appalachian State
- West Virginia
- Army
As always, I base the rankings off of SOS, Quality Wins, Margin of Victory, WINS, Conference Championships, Margin of Loss to Ranked Opponents, and The Ole Eye Test.
It’s been fun following College Football this year and if you like the articles feel free to check out some of our other articles here at TOSS. Seeing as how I don’t believe in preseason rankings, this will be the final rankings until after next season begins.
Thank you all for interacting with me throughout the year and I hope to be back doing it again later this year with my conference previews.
Until next time, I’m glad Bama got their Butts Whooped on National Television for all the world to see. Better luck next year.
Peace.
-Jaracz
The Other Side of Sports 