The Nebraska football team is among the very best programs in the history of college football, according to a recent ranking released by the Associated Press.
The AP has been ranking college football teams since 1936 and recently it decided to go back and rank the top 100 programs in the country over that period of time. The Huskers came in as number six on that list, despite some recent struggles even getting onto the poll.
In order to stay away from accusations of bias, the organization came up with a point system where it awarded one point for every appearance in one of the more than 1,100 polls the AP has released since 1936. It also awarded bonus points for number one rankings and then 10 bonus points for each national championships.
The Huskers ranked sixth thanks to its 901 total points. Those points were earned thanks to appearing in 717 of the 1,103 polls. Attaining a ranking of number one 72 times and winning four national titles.
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The AP shed a bit of light on some of the highlights and lowlights of each program in its top 100, pointing out that the Huskers’ best full decade was the 1990’s. In that decade, Nebraska appeared on every single one of the organization’s Top 25 polls.
Only two other schools in the Top 25 best programs can boast that level of success. Michigan, which was ranked as the seventh best program in history, had the same kind of perfect decade in the 1970’s and Florida State, ranked 9th on this list, was also perfect in the 1990’s.
For the Huskers, the worst decade in program history, at least as far as appearing in national polls go, was easily the 1950’s. The team appeared in just five percent of polls for that decade. Just how bad were they? The only two teams in the Top 10 who had worse showings was Florida State who went through the 1950’s without an appearance in a poll and Florida, who went through the 1940’s without a poll appearance.
The Seminoles get a bit of a pass for their 1950’s struggles, because the school didn’t have a football team until 1947. So who were the five teams ahead of Nebraska? They were exactly who you might expect.
Ohio State was named the top school, thanks to 852 appearances (77 percent of all polls) and attaining the number 1 spot 105 times and getting five national titles. Oklahoma nabbed the second spot, with Notre Dame finishing third, Alabama fourth and USC fifth.
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In addition to Nebraska, Michigan, and Ohio State making the all-time top 10, Penn State achieved the number 12 spot, Michigan State got number 19 , Wisconsin was 24th and Iowa was 25th. Those seven teams, including the Nebraska football team made the Big Ten one of the most represented conferences in the AP All-Time Top 25 Programs. Only the SEC, which had eight teams, had more.