College football: These 10 surprising teams were once the nation’s AP No. 1

The Alabama men’s basketball team earned the No. 1 ranking in this week’s AP poll, providing further evidence that this has been a wacky college hoops season in which traditional powers like Duke, North Carolina, and Kentucky have struggled and left a seemingly wide-open field for the 2023 Final Four and national title.

With the Tide (traditionally thought of as a football school) grabbing the No. 1 ranking in men’s basketball, it begs the question: what are some of the most surprising college football programs of the modern era to hold the nation’s top spot in the AP poll? To qualify as the “modern era,” let’s say your program must have been ranked No. 1 in 1960 or later.

Which surprise college football programs in the modern era (since 1960) have actually spent time as the AP poll’s No. 1-ranked team?

Looking at this list of teams overall, it’s clear that success can be fleeting in college football. Some of the programs on this list are far from traditional powers, and some of these surprise national title contenders are far down the pecking order from today’s college football elite.

You have to wonder, too, if the stacking of talent and resources at the nation’s few elite programs will prevent future “one-hit wonders” at the No. 1 spot. In the last decade, only seven teams have reached the AP No. 1 ranking, and more than half of those appearances are by Alabama alone. Two-thirds of all those No. 1 weekly rankings belong to Alabama, Clemson, or Ohio State.

Contrast that with the previous decade (2003 – 2012), in which 12 different teams reached the No. 1 spot. Six of those programs had 16 or more weeks in the top spot (10% of the total appearances): USC, Alabama, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Florida, and LSU.

Go back two decades before that (1983 – 1992) for even wilder results, when 17 different programs spent time at No. 1 — highlighted by Miami (Fla.), Oklahoma, and Notre Dame.

Honorable mention for this particular list has to go to South Florida, which was somehow ranked No. 2 in 2007 after a 6-0 start in one of the last few seasons of the Big East’s football days. The Bulls started the year 6-0 with wins against Auburn, North Carolina, and West Virginia to earn the No. 2 national ranking — only to lose their next three consecutive games.

The No. 2-ranked Bulls lost 30-27 to Rutgers (!) and then dropped games to Connecticut and Cincinnati. South Florida would finish the 2007 season with a 9-4 record after losing in the Sun Bowl to Oregon.

South Florida, now in the American Athletic Conference, has compiled an 8-37 record in the past four seasons combined — including a 1-11 finish last year.

Which college football programs are the most surprising No. 1-ranked teams of the modern era?