College Football Collection Preview!
The Journey Starts this Week
Wow. I can’t believe we are finally here, but we are! Starting Monday, I’ll be taking you all on a 13-week journey of the 39 most influential college football programs of all time. Since I have been working on this project for so long, I figured it would be logical to give some data points. These will of course be ignored when someone sees that I have a number slightly off…but that is the internet.
So, the biggest point is this: These statistics are from 1869-2023.
Next, 39 is about 15% of all Division 1 programs. I did not want the list to get too big, so this is the number I came up with.
Here are some of the criteria to make the list:
Sustained Success
National Titles
National Rankings
Contributions and Innovations
Corruption/Scandal
Brand
Big Games
Adding to the Overall Story of College Football
These are the 10 historical eras I broke national championships down into:
Pre NCAA (1869-1905)
Non-AP (1906-1935)
WW II Era (1936-1946)
Postwar, Pre-Civil Rights Act (1947-1963)
Post Integration Phase 1 (1964-1969)
Post Integration Phase 2 (1970-1979)
Post Integration Phase 3 (1980-1989)
Pre BCS (1990-1997)
BCS (1998-2013)
FBS 4 Team Playoff (2014-2023)
While the bulk of the list is FBS, there is a substantial number of FCS programs that are in here as well, including 5 programs in the top 15. I can’t tell you how hard it was to narrow this list down, yet somehow find myself sometimes thinking maybe it should be shorter. The back and forth was real.
Just as a warning, this is a series that is about college football, and therefore is about American history. There’s talk about war, integration, religion…but it’s not at all heavy, just the facts. You can’t tell an honest and thorough story about college football without at least touching on these subjects.
I think that’s it. I’m here to make articles short when I can so here, we are! I can’t wait to start this journey with you all on Monday, and make sure you share it far and wide! I have been working hard at this for almost a year now, and I can’t wait to share what I found with you.
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