This piece at ESPN snuck through during the holiday season and we wanted to make sure that it didn’t go totally ignored.
ESPN’s Pat Forde used Jeff Sagarin’s ratings over a five-year period to come up with a ranking of the two-sport schools over the last five years. The results are interesting.
NC State logged a respectable (#24) in the rankings, just ahead of Michigan State, UCLA, Clemson, USC, Oregon, Auburn and Arizona. Unfortunately for State, any such ranking next year will be severely impaired by this year’s basketball performance and the fact that State’s Gator Bowl season in football will roll out of the analysis set.
Boston College’s consistency (and one big year in basketball) helps land them at (#6) nationally and a surprising (#1) in the ACC. Maryland is (#8); Florida State (#15); and Georgia Tech ties Georgia at (#20).
Like the Pack, the Terps will also be negatively in the near future as some of their great basketball teams from the beginning of the decade roll-off simultaneously with their ACC Champion football team.
Carolina and Duke were both hurt by their football programs (and the Heels had some residual of the of the Matt Doeherty era) ranking (#33) and (#50), respectively.
What schools might significantly improve if the rankings are done again next year? Look for Penn State and Texas A&M to make forward progress; Memphis, Nebraska and South Carolina may also make some moves.
For the record, East Carolina is (#104) out of 119 schools.
Forde’s exercise is interesting. Using Sagarin is as logical as using anything. Of course, the Sagarin basically counts every game the same and doesn’t adjust or account for big milestones and championships.
It would ve VERY INTERESTING to see some college student work on a statistical model that attempts to account for other variables by quantifying and ranking the magnitude of other relevant achievements like – conference ranking, championships, bowl success (accounting for the difference in bids in good bowls and bad bowls), etc, etc.
