Tip Top 25 in helmets, smaller
                                                    Home

Overrated and Underrated College Football Teams of the Decade 1960-1969


Now that I've repaired every AP poll 1960-1969, we can take a look at the totals and see which teams were the most often overrated and underrated by AP poll voters in that decade. However, this decade is different from others because the AP poll just published a top 10 1962-1967. Because of that, we'll have a lot more gainers than losers for this decade. Giving 25 points for first, 24 for second, etc., here are the total original AP poll points earned by the top teams of 1960-1969:

1) Alabama 181
2) Arkansas 142
3) Texas 139
4) Notre Dame 128
5) Southern Cal 126
6) Ohio State 106
7) Mississippi 105
8) Louisiana State 101
9) Penn State 99
10) Nebraska 96
11) Missouri 93
       Michigan State
13) Purdue 80.5

Here are the ranking points teams earned from my fixed and expanded (to 25 teams) AP polls 1960-1969:

1) Alabama 166.5
2) Southern Cal 155.5
3) Texas 150
4) Arkansas 144
5) Ohio State 143
6) Purdue 137
7) Mississippi 131.5
8) Notre Dame 124
9) Louisiana State 111
10) Nebraska 110
11) Missouri 108
12) Michigan State 99.5
13) UCLA 94

The top team of the decade in either case, Alabama, lost ground in the fixed and expanded polls for a couple of reasons. First of all, they were already ranked in the top 10 of the AP poll every year 1962-1967, so they stood to gain nothing by adding 15 teams to those rankings. The teams who gained the most in the fixed polls tended to do well (#11-25) 1962-1967. Secondly, the AP poll did not count bowls in most of these years, and Alabama was upset 3 times in bowl games.

Given that my fixed polls make a lot more sense than the original AP polls, it is no surprise that the list of top teams from the fixed polls 1960-'69 makes more sense than the list of top teams from the original polls for that decade. In the original, for example, Arkansas is ahead of Texas, even though Texas won the decade series against Arkansas 6-4. In the original, Notre Dame was 4th and Purdue 13th for the decade, though Purdue was 7-3 against Notre Dame. Purdue rises to #6 for the decade in the fixed polls-- they were underrated almost every year. Notre Dame, overrated, drops to #8.

Overrated

Here are the teams that lost the most poll points for the decade 1960-1969:

1)  Utah State   -16
2) Alabama     -14.5
3) Penn State   -9
     Rutgers
5) Arizona        -8
6) Ohio             -6
7) Wyoming     -5
     Yale
9) Indiana         -4
    Notre Dame

Utah State lost all of their points in one fixed poll (1961), as did several of these teams. Penn State's drops came from the first half of the decade, before Joe Paterno took over as head coach.

Underrated

Here are the teams that gained the most poll points for the decade 1960-1969:

1) Florida                +61
2) Purdue               +56.5
3) Ohio State         +37
4) Michigan            +35
5) Miami (Florida) +33
6) Georgia Tech    +32
7) Southern Cal     +28.5
     Syracuse
9) UCLA                +28
10) Georgia          +27
11) Mississippi    +26.5
12) Illinois             +21
       Auburn
14) Oklahoma     +20
Florida and Auburn show up on this list again, just like every decade, it seems. They're waging quite the battle for the title of most underrated team of all time-- at this point, after more than 50 years of fixed polls, it will be hard for anyone to catch up with them. But I still have 24 more to go, so we shall see.

Florida snuck up on me here-- I expected Purdue to be a comfortable #1. I hadn't noticed Florida because they didn't win any conference titles and never threatened to win a national championship this decade. But they did well 1962-1967, and even snuck into the bottom of the top 10 in a couple of fixed polls (1964 and 1966). Their quarterback, Steve Spurrier, won the Heisman in '66. They were ranked 34th for the decade in original AP poll points, but moved up to 17th for the decade in fixed poll points. Their head coach, Ray Graves, is in the Hall of Fame, and his tenure at Florida happened to be exactly 1960-1969. He went 70-31-4 and 4-1 in bowl games.

This was Purdue's best decade ever. In addition to dominating Notre Dame, they had a winning record against every Big 10 team except Ohio State, whom they were 1-2 against. Sportswriters, however, were oddly unmoved by them, and repeatedly ranked Notre Dame higher in years when Purdue beat the Irish.

Home