Thursday, February 22, 2007

Narrowing the Field

I was doing some quick research on the National Champions of this decade, and I noticed a little bit of a trend for these teams. Obviously, seven national champions isn't the best of sample sizes, but in the current landscape of college football, it's enough for me to mention.

Here is what I found: 6 of the last 7 BCS Champions returned 6 defensive starters and six offensive starters, with one of the six being the quarterback. Ohio State was the lone outlier.

So, who are the the teams who meet this criteria as of spring practice (If your team is listed, and I tabulated incorrectly, let me know)?

Ole Miss
South Carolina
Kentucky
Vanderbilt
Purdue
Northwestern
Indiana
Texas A&M
Oklahoma State
Colorado
Kansas
Miami
Virginia Tech
North Carolina
Florida State
Boston College
Southern Cal
California
Arizona State
Oregon
UCLA
West Virginia
South Florida
Connecticut
Cincinnati

That's a lot of teams! However, to narrow these teams down to a much more defined list, I found that every single BCS Champion of this decade had 7 or more wins the previous year. From Oklahoma to Florida, they all had at least 7 wins. So, the teams like Indiana and Connecticut will be removed from the list, leaving the pool of teams that will win the National Title as follows:




All logos used from http://www.gnu-bee.com/football/index.shtml; sorry South Florida and Cincinnati - I know you win 7+ games and fit the criteria, but this is much prettier ... and do you REALLY think you have a chance?

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