Monday night’s terrific championship game between Clemson and Alabama—the same matchup the old Bowl Championship Series system would have produced—capped yet another splendid college football season. Unlike in so many other sports, the format produced a champion that actually was the best team on the year—a product of college football’s emphasis on the regular season. In fact, Alabama, which beat Clemson 45-40, was not only (by far) the best team on the year, according to the Anderson & Hester Rankings, but was the best team in the past five years. The last time a team posted a higher mark than Alabama’s .830 rating this season was when the Crimson Tide’s archrival Auburn went 14-0 in 2010-11 and posted a rating of .844. (The all-time mark of .849 is held by the 2005-06 Texas squad.)
What’s more, Alabama posted the highest rating of any 1-loss team in the BCS/College Football Playoff era, going 14-1 versus the nation’s 2nd-toughest schedule. Along the way, the Tide beat an eye-opening eight teams that finished in the Anderson & Hester top-25 (plus #26 Arkansas)—twice as many as any other top-10 team, and the most by any top-10 team in the past decade. (The Tide’s only loss was to (10-3) Ole Miss, which finished #9.)
Elsewhere, Stanford’s Rose Bowl win over Iowa landed the Cardinal in the Anderson & Hester top-5 for the first time all season (at #5). The Southeastern Conference finished as by far the top conference (the Big Ten was second and the Pac-12 third), with seven teams in the top-25—fully half the conference. Meanwhile, the Atlantic Coast Conference finished with just one team in the top-25 (#2 Clemson), a tally matched by Conference USA (whose champion, Western Kentucky, went 12-2 and finished #25).
Finally, the Naval Academy capped an impressive 11-2 season with a #17 ranking—ahead of Oregon, Florida State, and USC.
Anderson, a Hudson Institute senior fellow, is co-creator of the Anderson & Hester Rankings, which were part of the BCS throughout its 16-year run and are now published by the Dallas Morning News.
