College Football: 5 most underrated programs in college football history

Which college football programs are the most underrated? This week’s Sunday Morning Quarterback looks at five historically silent powerhouses.

A few weeks ago, a Saturday Blitz colleague wrote an article about the most overrated programs in college football history that piqued my interest and got the wheels spinning. Our tendency is to look at teams that don’t live up to the hype. Far less frequently do we look at teams that aren’t getting enough hype.

For whatever reason, some programs get the blue-blood label and others with better records and pedigrees fall into the afterthought category. Today we are looking at those afterthoughts and sifting teams that don’t get enough credit. In doing so, the goal is to shine a light on programs whose historical greatness isn’t always immediately evident.

First, though, we must define what constitutes being underrated

Sometimes it comes down to a team living in the shadow of another powerhouse within their own state. It could be a matter of ebbs in play at the wrong times in college football history. Whatever the reason, though, an underrated team is one for which a recent run of success is viewed as an aberration rather than the norm for the program.

When a team like Alabama tapers off and then rebounds under a coach like Nick Saban, the lulls are considered the aberration. The return to prominence is viewed as a restoration of the natural order. And there is a reason why teams like the Tide, Ohio State, Oklahoma, and Southern California are unanimously considered powerhouses. Their record of success, both in terms of titles and wins, is unimpeachable.

When it comes to teams right behind those perpetual powers, though, memory often fails to line up with the hard data. Determining who is a blue-blood and who is a workaday program often falls down to a smell test that is neither scientific nor wholly justified.

So how did these five make the cut of the most underrated teams?

In this edition of Sunday Morning Quarterback, the teams on the following list are largely the victims of circumstance. All five have won multiple national championships. Four of the five made it into either the BCS or the College Football Playoff at some point in the 21st century.

Four of the five teams also feature among the top several dozen teams in historical winning percentage. That factor was considered in the final ranking of each team on the list. It was not the only factor considered, and as with any ranking this list is always going to end up somewhat subjective in its findings.

In a system as messy and as chaotic and as fun as college football, that is inevitable. But we shouldn’t let that keep us from taking a shot at identifying the most underrated teams. Keep reading for the SMQ top five most underrated programs in college football history.