How a person views a sport tends to be a function of his or her age. People who have been watching the game for decades tend to find more currency in tradition and performance in years long since passed, while kids might only know the sport based on what they’ve seen.
How every college football team has stacked up since current recruits started watching
How good has your favorite team been over the past decade?
Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports
The upcoming 2016 recruiting class was born in the late 1990s, and for the most part, they probably only really know what’s happened in the past 10 years or so. The program prestige they know is based on recent history.
F/+ is the ranking system used by Football Outsiders, a combination of the S&P+ metric by our own Bill Connelly and Brian Fremeau’s Efficiency Index.
These are the 10-year F/+ averages for every FBS team, or approximately the time period in which today’s recruits have been paying attention. For teams that have been competing at the FBS level for fewer than 10 years, their average simply includes all the years they’ve spent as an FBS program. Basically, a rating of 0.0 would mean a perfectly average team.
| Rank | School | 10-year F/+ average |
| 1 | Alabama | 49.3% |
| 2 | Ohio State | 48.0% |
| 3 | Oklahoma | 44.3% |
| 4 | LSU | 43.3% |
| 5 | USC | 42.0% |
| 6 | Oregon | 41.9% |
| 7 | Florida | 41.2% |
| 8 | Georgia | 35.1% |
| 9 | Texas | 34.6% |
| 10 | Boise State | 32.7% |
| 11 | TCU | 32.0% |
| 12 | Virginia Tech | 31.8% |
| 13 | Wisconsin | 28.7% |
| 14 | Florida State | 28.2% |
| 15 | South Carolina | 27.4% |
| 16 | Penn State | 26.5% |
| 17 | Auburn | 26.3% |
| 18 | Missouri | 26.2% |
| 19 | Oklahoma State | 25.6% |
| 20 | Clemson | 24.9% |
| 21 | Notre Dame | 24.9% |
| 22 | West Virginia | 24.2% |
| 23 | Michigan | 23.1% |
| 24 | Michigan State | 22.2% |
| 25 | Nebraska | 21.8% |
| 26 | Stanford | 21.7% |
| 27 | Arkansas | 21.6% |
| 28 | BYU | 20.7% |
| 29 | Texas A&M | 18.7% |
| 30 | Tennessee | 17.5% |
| 31 | Georgia Tech | 17.2% |
| 32 | Pittsburgh | 16.8% |
| 33 | Miami (Fla.) | 16.6% |
| 34 | Iowa | 16.4% |
| 35 | Utah | 15.2% |
| 36 | Louisville | 14.9% |
| 37 | Arizona | 13.9% |
| 38 | Arizona State | 13.8% |
| 39 | Texas Tech | 13.3% |
| 40 | Oregon State | 13.3% |
| 41 | Cincinnati | 12.3% |
| 42 | UCLA | 12.1% |
| 43 | Boston College | 11.7% |
| 44 | Kansas State | 9.3% |
| 45 | Baylor | 8.3% |
| 46 | Ole Miss | 7.7% |
| 47 | Mississippi State | 6.5% |
| 48 | California | 5.5% |
| 49 | Rutgers | 4.5% |
| 50 | North Carolina | 4.3% |
| 51 | South Florida | 4.3% |
| 52 | Georgia Southern | 4.0% |
| 53 | Central Florida | 3.0% |
| 54 | Washington | 2.6% |
| 55 | Tulsa | 2.6% |
| 56 | Houston | 2.4% |
| 57 | NC State | 0.2% |
| 58 | Minnesota | -0.4% |
| 59 | Navy | -1.3% |
| 60 | East Carolina | -1.6% |
| 61 | Maryland | -1.8% |
| 62 | Virginia | -1.8% |
| 63 | Fresno State | -1.9% |
| 64 | Northwestern | -1.9% |
| 65 | Northern Illinois | -2.5% |
| 66 | Nevada | -4.4% |
| 67 | Wake Forest | -4.5% |
| 68 | Illinois | -4.8% |
| 69 | Connecticut | -5.8% |
| 70 | Kentucky | -5.9% |
| 71 | Purdue | -6.0% |
| 72 | Southern Miss | -6.1% |
| 73 | Air Force | -6.3% |
| 74 | Vanderbilt | -6.9% |
| 75 | Kansas | -7.5% |
| 76 | Toledo | -8.7% |
| 77 | Marshall | -9.0% |
| 78 | Iowa State | -9.9% |
| 79 | Syracuse | -10.0% |
| 80 | Utah State | -12.8% |
| 81 | Louisiana Tech | -13.0% |
| 82 | Central Michigan | -13.9% |
| 83 | Colorado | -13.9% |
| 84 | Ball State | -14.1% |
| 85 | Old Dominion | -14.3% |
| 86 | Hawaii | -14.7% |
| 87 | Bowling Green | -14.8% |
| 88 | San Diego State | -15.0% |
| 89 | Indiana | -15.2% |
| 90 | Duke | -15.4% |
| 91 | Western Michigan | -15.8% |
| 92 | SMU | -15.9% |
| 93 | Washington State | -17.4% |
| 94 | Arkansas State | -17.8% |
| 95 | Ohio | -18.0% |
| 96 | South Alabama | -18.2% |
| 97 | Troy | -18.3% |
| 98 | Western Kentucky | -18.6% |
| 99 | Colorado State | -19.6% |
| 100 | Temple | -21.1% |
| 101 | Wyoming | -22.2% |
| 102 | Middle Tennessee | -22.2% |
| 103 | Rice | -22.4% |
| 104 | UL-Lafayette | -23.1% |
| 105 | UTEP | -23.1% |
| 106 | Memphis | -23.4% |
| 107 | San Jose State | -23.9% |
| 108 | UTSA | -24.6% |
| 109 | Kent State | -25.1% |
| 110 | UAB | -25.7% |
| 111 | UL-Monroe | -26.4% |
| 112 | New Mexico | -27.2% |
| 113 | Appalachian State | -28.0% |
| 114 | Miami (Ohio) | -29.0% |
| 115 | Texas State | -29.3% |
| 116 | Buffalo | -29.8% |
| 117 | Akron | -29.9% |
| 118 | Florida International | -30.4% |
| 119 | Florida Atlantic | -30.5% |
| 120 | UNLV | -31.0% |
| 121 | Army | -31.4% |
| 122 | Tulane | -33.5% |
| 123 | North Texas | -34.1% |
| 124 | Idaho | -41.6% |
| 125 | Eastern Michigan | -42.0% |
| 126 | Georgia State | -43.2% |
| 127 | New Mexico State | -48.9% |
| 128 | Massachusetts | -50.0% |
Observations:
- The top 10 are all teams you would probably guess. Alabama and Ohio State are several percentage points ahead of the pack in the top two spots, and Nos. 3-7 Oklahoma, LSU, USC, Oregon, and Florida all slot in fairly tightly behind them before there’s another big gap.
- Boise State is the top team from outside the power conferences, at No. 10, as you could’ve predicted. The Big 12’s TCU is right behind at 11, and they spent the majority of this 10-year period in the Mountain West. The next highest team from outside a power conference is BYU at 28th.
- The worst power conference team over the last decade has been Washington State, which came in at 93rd, just edging out Duke and Indiana. But hey, top 100!
- The lowest team, UMass, has found its first four seasons at the FBS level to be difficult. The Minutemen are not that far behind New Mexico State, though. I mean, somebody has to be last, but sheesh.
See More:
