Power Rankings - 5 Year Period

In my post on Power Rankings below I used a 10 year win percentage number as the first of my 3 factors in determining an “unbiased” National Power Rankings Index.

After a couple of inquiries as to what a different (shorter) time period might look like, I changed the first factor to a five year period. After rerunning the equation, the top 20 teams look as thus –

1 Southern Cal 6.994
2 Florida 6.704
3 Michigan 6.538
4 Texas 6.455
5 Tennessee 6.386
6 Louisiana State 6.346
7 Ohio State 6.284
8 Georgia 6.267
9 Oklahoma 5.718
10 Auburn 5.655
11 Penn State 5.630
12 Florida State 5.351
13 Notre Dame 5.139
14 Alabama 5.125
15 Nebraska 4.833
16 Miami-Florida 4.805
17 California 4.759
18 Clemson 4.734
19 Virginia Tech 4.600
20 South Carolina 4.590

USC’s better winning percentage over the past 5 years edges the Trojans ahead of Florida. The only other significant change is Cal in the top 20, and Texas A&M out.

I think most people would pretty well agree that the top names on this list are “recognized” “national powers”.

Except perhaps old Stewart Mandel.

In his now infamous list of “Kings” in the national power discussion, Mandel lists -

“Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn State, Tennessee*, Texas and USC.”

Notice that his 13 teams are nearly identical to the top 16 teams in our Power Rating, with the exception of 3 omissions –

LSU
Georgia
Auburn

Somebody doesn’t like the SEC.