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Most Overrated and Underrated College Football Programs in AP Poll History

Now that I've repaired every AP poll (1936-2023), we can take a look at the totals and see which college football programs have been the most overrated and underrated in AP poll history. Of course, teams gained a lot more ranking places in the fixed polls than they lost overall, because in addition to logically fixing all the AP polls, I've extended them all to 25 teams. Before 1989, the AP poll only ranked 20 teams, and 1962-1967 they only ranked 10 teams. And during World War 2, they ranked military all-star teams, which I threw out, leaving just 15 college teams in 1943 and 10 in 1944. So there were a lot of ranking places to be gained during all those years.

In addition, I've listed the most overrated and underrated football programs of each decade going back to the 1980s, which you can find below.

All-Time Overrated

Here are the most overrated programs in AP poll history, and the total number of ranking places these teams lost in the fixed polls 1936-2023:

1) Brigham Young    -50.5  (overrated 15 times, underrated 4)
2) Virginia Tech        -39     (overrated 10, underrated 6)
3) West Virginia        -38     (overrated 11, underrated 9)
4) Air Force               -34     (overrated 5, never underrated)
5) Oklahoma             -32.5  (overrated 20, underrated 15)
6) Louisville               -30     (overrated 8, never underrated)
7) Utah State             -27     (overrated 3, underrated 1)
8) Holy Cross            -24.5  (overrated 5, underrated 1)
9) William & Mary     -24     (overrated 3, never underrated)
10) Boston College  -23.5  (overrated 8, underrated 5)
11) Maryland             -22.5  (overrated 10, underrated 7)

Brigham Young

Brigham Young is no surprise at the top of the list. Every year the AP poll hands out token placements to "Little Big" teams who forge strong-looking straight records against weak schedules, and BYU has historically been the biggest beneficiary of that habit. I'm not saying that BYU has been bad -- they've been generally good since the 1970s, and Lavell Edwards did a tremendous job building that program up -- but they have not been as strong as the AP poll voters appear to have believed (though I doubt those voters would have put their own money on BYU against many of the teams they ranked lower).

In the 15 seasons that BYU was overrated, they won at least 10 games each time, but they defeated a total of just 7 ranked opponents in those 15 seasons, and they lost to 15 unranked teams. If you take the single best team that was rated behind BYU in each of those seasons, those teams totaled 15 wins against rated opponents and 8 losses to unrated teams, twice as good as BYU. The most bogus rating BYU has achieved was #14 in 2007, when they went 11-2, but did not play a single rated opponent, and won just 17-16 over 6-7 UCLA in the Las Vegas Bowl.

Oklahoma

The biggest surprise is Oklahoma at #5, the only elite team on this list, and in fact the only team I would call "elite" that has lost ranking placements at all. The fault here is mostly the severe weakness of Oklahoma's conference back in the days of yore. Prior to the 1960s, the Big 8/7/6 (Colorado joined in 1948 and Oklahoma State in 1958) was, other than Oklahoma, at a power level somewhere between today's CUSA and the Sun Belt. Oklahoma lost 28 ranking places in the fixed polls 1936-1963, and their total for the AP poll era is -32.5, so that early period is responsible for nearly all of their historical overranking. On the other hand, Oklahoma was the most overrated team of the 2010s (as covered below), and why that is, I do not know.

West Virginia and Virginia Tech

West Virginia, #3 with 38 lost ranking places, lost almost all of that in the fixed polls of 3 straight years, 1953, 1954, and 1955.

#2 Virginia Tech is the better threat to one day supplant Brigham Young at the top. VT was actually underrated 4 times in the 1990s, when Frank Beamer first built them up, but ever since they played in the national championship game for the 1999 season, they have been overrated 7 times. Of course, maybe their problem was joining the ACC-- that conference has 3 teams on the list, and #11 Maryland was also in the ACC for most of its history. Whatever the reason, since 2000, Virginia Tech has been the king of overrated teams.

All-Time Underrated

Here are the most underrated programs in AP poll history, and the total number of ranking places these teams gained in the fixed polls 1936-2023:

1) Florida                     +148     (underrated 34 times, overrated 5)
2) Purdue                     +130.5   (underrated 21, overrated 5)
3) Southern Cal           +109      (underrated 31, overrated 14)
4) Auburn                     +107      (underrated 32, overrated 11)
5) UCLA                        +93.5    (underrated 23, overrated 14)
6) Georgia Tech           +87.5    (underrated 23, overrated 6)
7) Georgia                    +74.5     (underrated 27, overrated 7)
    Washington                             (underrated 22, overrated 11)
9) Tennessee               +67.5    (underrated 30, overrated 19)
    Michigan                                 (underrated 29, overrated 24)
11) Texas                      +66      (underrated 25, overrated 15)
12) Mississippi State  +62.5    (underrated 11, overrated 2)
13) Northwestern          +61      (underrated 17, overrated 5)
14) Notre Dame           +54.5    (underrated 30, overrated 16)
      Ohio State                            (underrated 27, overrated 21)
16) Miami (Florida)      +53       (underrated 17, overrated 5)
17) Wisconsin               +50       (underrated 17, overrated 8)
18) Oklahoma State     +49      (underrated 13, overrated 5)
19) Louisiana State     +42.5    (underrated 25, overrated 14)
20) Florida State          +34.5     (underrated 20, overrated 9)
       Minnesota                  "          (underrated 7, overrated 8)

Florida

Florida is #1, primarily because their schedules have been pretty monstrous, and the AP poll tends to reward teams that play weak schedules and punish teams that play tough ones. Florida plays an SEC conference schedule, of course, and on top of that they play Florida State every season, and on top of that they used to play Miami every season until 1987. In the 1950s, Florida was actually overrated, and they lost a total of 12 ranking places in the fixed polls through 1959. That all changed with the arrival of Hall of Fame coach Ray Graves in 1960, and Florida gained a total of 61 ranking places during his tenure 1960-1969. That is mostly because the AP poll only ranked 10 teams 1962-1967, and when I extended those rankings to 25 teams, Florida gained 57 places right there. But they should have been rated in the top 10 in 1964 and 1966. Those were Steve Spurrier's years, and he won the Heisman at quarterback.

The 1960s gave Florida the biggest chunk of their overall gain, but they've been underrated every decade since: +15 in the 1970s, +37.5 in the 1980s, +8 in the 1990s, and +39 since 2000. They've gained the most during their off years, of course, because they were dismissed due to weak-looking straight records. Take 2003, when they were 8-5. That team was ranked #24, but all 5 of their losses came to the AP poll's own top 15 teams, and they defeated the AP poll's #2 and #7 teams (they also beat unranked 9-4 Arkansas). Clearly they were underrated, and should have at least been #16, behind the lowest-ranked team that beat them. Some of the teams ranked ahead of them were a joke-- 10-3 Nebraska, 10-3 Minnesota, and 10-2 Utah did not beat any ranked opponents, and all lost to unranked teams. This was a classic example of the AP poll punishing a team for playing a tough schedule.

Purdue and the Big 10

This list's surprise, unless you've read through my fixed polls of the 1960s, is #2 Purdue. Like Florida, Purdue had a Hall of Fame coach leading them to unprecedented strength during that decade. Jack Mollenkopf went 84-39-9 1956-1969, and through 1969 Purdue had gained 117.5 places in the fixed AP polls. They are only +13 in more than 50 seasons since. 1969 was the worst injustice done to Purdue during their Golden Age-- they were 8-2 that season and ranked #18, but they lost to the AP poll's #4 and #9 teams and defeated their #5 and #19 teams. #5 was 8-2-1 Notre Dame, and Purdue should have been rated higher than them. But Purdue was 7-3 against Notre Dame that decade, and often ranked behind them even when they beat them.

The Big 10 in general may seem like a surprise. While the SEC has dominated the lists of most underrated programs for the last 2 decades (covered below), this list for 1936-2023 has the Big 10 quite a bit closer to them, with 6 teams on the list, same as the SEC. Well, gather around children, and let me tell you a story. There was a time, long ago, before the internet and desegregation, when the Big 10 was the most powerful conference in the land, as powerful as the SEC is today. No, this is not a fairy tale. It all ended around the mid-1960s. Northwestern (#13 on this list), behind Hall of Fame coaches Pappy Waldorf in the 1930s and 1940s and Ara Parseghian in the 1950s and 1960s, gained a total of 71 ranking places through 1963 (Parseghian's last year). They are -10 in the 57 seasons since. #14 Ohio State gained 68 ranking places through 1965, but they are -13.5 since. Similarly, #9 Michigan gained 69 ranking places through 1969, but they are -1.5 since.

Georgia Tech

Wait, did I say the SEC has 6 teams on this list? Technically, they have 7, because #6 Georgia Tech made almost all of their gain in the fixed polls while they were a member of the SEC. But the real driving force behind Georgia Tech's gain was Hall of Fame coach Bobby Dodd, who was at the wheel 1945-1966. Georgia Tech gained 81.5 ranking places in the fixed polls through 1965, and they're just +6 in the 55 years since.

The West Coast

The West Coast is represented by #3 Southern Cal, #5 UCLA, and #7 Washington-- by far the most successful West Coast programs of the AP poll era. Writers still talk about bias against the West Coast, but while I don't think that bias exists any longer (the PAC 12 as a whole gained just 1 total net ranking point 2000-2023, so overall they were rated pretty close to spot-on in that time), it appears to have been very much a real thing up until that point (the PAC 10 was +53.5 in the 1990s). It's hard to believe that glamorous Southern Cal would be underrated so much (+109), but then they are just +2.5 since 1997, so perhaps the glamor shines more brightly for today's writers than it did in the past, when few writers saw them. Indeed, there was a time when many writers were voting without even seeing the West Coast scores.

Texas and Miami-Florida

Texas comes in at #11, but their days of being consistently underrated may be over. They were +69.5 through 1990, but they are -3.5 since then. That's 33 years of being slightly overrated.

Miami-Florida emerged as an elite power in the 1980s, but that is not when their great gain in the fixed polls came from. They benefited from being good in the 1960s, gaining when I expanded those polls from 10 teams to 25. They were +33 1961-1968, and they are only +20 in the other 77 years of AP poll history.

Overrated and Underrated Programs of the Decade 2010-2019

Here are the football programs and conferences that were most overrated and underrated in the AP poll for the decade 2010-2019.

Overrated

1) Oklahoma       -14    (4 times)
    Utah State          "     (2 times)
3) South Florida  -11    (2 times)
4) Boise State     -10   (4 times)
    Utah                     "    (3 times)

Oklahoma, as previously noted, tops the list, sharing the throne with Utah State of the Mountain West Conference (MWC). The MWC also provides 2 other teams to this list, Boise State and Utah (tied at #4), but Utah actually lost all their ranking places here as a member of the PAC 12. They were +3 as a member of the MWC.

For the second decade in a row (see below for 2000-2009), the ACC was the most overrated conference, its teams being overrated for a total of 26 ranking places. 7 ACC teams were overrated for the decade, 4 underrated. The next most overrated conferences for the decade were the AAC (American Athletic, -23), the MWC (-20), CUSA (-18), and the WAC (-14). Note that the WAC was only active 2010-2012 during this decade.

These conference numbers were far more complex to put together than normal because this decade saw an unprecedented amount of teams switching conferences.

Underrated

1) Auburn                   +33   (5 times)
2) Michigan                +20   (5 times)
3) Mississippi State  +12   (1 time)
    Texas                         "     (3 times)
5) Iowa                        +10   (4 times)

For the second decade in a row (see below for 2000-2009), Auburn was the most underrated football program.

And for the second decade in a row, the SEC was the most underrated conference, though not so dominant on this list as in the previous decade. The SEC gained a total of 69 ranking places, 10 of its teams being underrated for the decade and 4 overrated. The next most underrated conference was the Big 10 (+37), and no other conference was appreciably underrated this decade.

Overrated and Underrated Programs of the Decade 2000-2009

Here are the football programs and conferences that were most overrated and underrated in the AP poll for the decade 2000-2009.

Overrated

1) Virginia Tech      -17      (5 times)
2) Texas                   -15.5   (3 times)
3) Maryland              -12      (2 times)
     Illinois                      "            "
5) Brigham Young   -11.5   (2 times)

The ACC supplied #1 (Virginia Tech) and #3 (Maryland), and not surprisingly, the ACC was the most overrated conference of this decade, its teams being overrated by a total of 27.5 ranking places. 7 ACC teams were overrated, and 4 were underrated. The next most overrated conferences were the Mountain West (-22.5), the Big East (-19), and the WAC (-12).

Underrated

1) Auburn                 +22     (6 times)
2) Florida                 +19     (5 times)
3) Louisiana State  +18.5  (5 times)
4) Tennessee          +15     (4 times)
5) Georgia               +14     (5 times)
     Penn State             "       (3 times)
     Purdue                    "       (2 times)

As you can see, this list was dominated by the SEC. The AP poll is set up to give relatively equal regional representation in its top 25, so when one conference is far and away the best, you can expect that conference to be consistently underrated. The SEC was by far the most underrated conference of this decade, and by a gigantic total of 109 ranking places! In fact, the SEC was the only conference that was really underrated for this decade at all, at least to a degree that is worth mentioning. And the SEC had only one team that was overrated for the decade (Mississippi).

Overrated and Underrated Programs of the Decade 1990-1999

Here are the football programs and conferences that were most overrated and underrated in the AP poll for the decade 1990-1999.

Overrated

1) Texas A&M       -18.5 (6 times)
2) Southern Miss   -15    (2 times)
    Brigham Young    "      (3 times)
4) Air Force            -12   (2 times)
5) Alabama             -9     (4 times)

It may seem shocking to see 2 SEC teams make the overrated list for the 1990s, but remember that Texas A&M was in the SWC and Big 12 during this time. So we only see 1 SEC team, which is surprising enough. It's the only time an SEC team made any of these overrated lists.

The most overrated conference was the WAC at -34, followed by the ACC at -17.5 and CUSA at -16.

Underrated

1) Washington    +23    (6 times)
2) Southern Cal  +14    (5 times)
3) Illinois              +13    (2 times)
4) Ohio State      +12.5 (4 times)
5) Tennessee     +11    (5 times)

The PAC 10 took the top 2 spots here, and you'll not be surprised to learn that the most underrated conference of the 1990s was easily the PAC 10 at +53.5, followed by the Big 10 at +17.5 and the SEC at +12. This is the second straight decade that the PAC 10 was the most underrated conference (see below). People like to say that the PAC 10 is generally underrated because they get less attention due to their time zone, but it should be noted that the PAC 10/12 has not been particularly underrated over the last 2 decades, so contrary to popular belief, the time zone issue may not be as much of a problem as it once was. It is also interesting to see that the SEC was not nearly as underrated in the '90s as they have been in the following 2 decades, probably because they were not nearly as powerful in the 90s as they have been since.

Overrated and Underrated Programs of the Decade 1980-1989

Here are the football programs and conferences that were most overrated and underrated in the AP poll for the decade 1980-1989.

Overrated

1) Ohio State                 -26  (6 times)
2) Southern Methodist  -19  (4 times)
3) Air Force                   -18  (2 times)
4) Brigham Young         -15  (5 times)
5) Baylor                         -11  (3 times)

As you can see, Ohio State was the most overrated team of the 1980s, and their 6 seasons of being overrated all came in a row 1981-1986. During this time the Buckeyes were relentlessly ranked ahead of teams that beat them. I have no theory as to why AP writers loved Earle Bruce's OSU teams so much, but it's no surprise that writers nationwide pitched a fit when OSU fired Bruce-- they obviously thought he was a much better coach than he was.

The most overrated conference was the Big 10, at -54. The SWC was -43, the WAC -33 (thanks to just 2 teams, BYU and Air Force).

Underrated

1) Florida                +17.5  (6 times)
2) Southern Cal      +16     (6 times)
3) Auburn                +14     (4 times)
4) Miami (Florida)  +13     (3 times)
5) Notre Dame       +10     (3 times)

The most underrated team of the 1980s is the most underrated team of all time, Florida. The SEC also placed a team at #3 for the decade, but the SEC was not the most underrated conference of the 1980s. That honor went to the PAC 10 again, at +35.5, though the SEC was just behind at +28.5.
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