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?
10. Michigan State
The Spartans last held the nation’s No. 1 ranking in 1966, but they have actually gotten pretty close to this spot in recent years. That year’s Michigan State squad finished the year 9-0-1 after a 10-10 tie against No. 1 Notre Dame for the last game of the regular season. Neither team played in a bowl game, and No. 3 Alabama ended up with an 11-0 record after defeating No. 6 Nebraska in the Sugar Bowl.
Last season’s 5-7 squad under Mel Tucker might seem like a far cry from national title contention, but this program is capable of doing much better. The Spartans’ 11-2 finish in 2021 is the only good season in the past five years, and there are legitimate concerns that Big Ten rivals Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan are now outpacing the program.
9. Colorado
The Buffaloes spent time as the nation’s No. 1 team in 1989 and 1990 and ended up splitting the 1990 national title with Georgia Tech. The 11-1-1 Colorado squad, representing the Big 8, knocked off Notre Dame 10-9 in the Orange Bowl to claim a share of the national title.
The Buffaloes actually avenged a loss to the Fighting Irish in the same bowl from the previous season, when 11-0 Colorado lost to Notre Dame 21-6.
Current Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy was Colorado’s All-American running back for that 1990 team. He finished third in the Heisman voting that year and is the Buffaloes’ school leader in career rushing yards (3,940) and rushing touchdowns (42).
Colorado is now famously led by new head coach Deion Sanders, but the Buffaloes haven’t done much on the gridiron lately — they’ve had six consecutive losing seasons (including a 1-11 mark last year).
8. Missouri
The Tigers vaulted to the nation’s No. 1 AP ranking near the end of the 2007 college football season despite an earlier regular-season loss to Oklahoma. Missouri had its chance for revenge against the Sooners in the Big 12 championship game but fell short by a score of 38-17, leading the Tigers to the Cotton Bowl instead of the BCS No. 1 vs. No. 2 title matchup.
Missouri hasn’t done well in its transition to the SEC from the Big 12 a decade ago. The Tigers have achieved only two winning seasons since 2015, a stretch that includes an 0-4 mark in bowl games.
The Tigers’ best season since that 2007 run came in 2013 when a 12-2 team beat Florida, Georgia, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M before falling to Auburn in the conference title game in the program’s first year in the SEC.
7. Brigham Young
The Cougars had a dream 1984 season with a 13-0 record and a national championship behind quarterback Robbie Bosco (3,875 passing yards and 33 passing touchdowns). BYU hasn’t been ranked No. 1 since, although they’ve spent time in the Top 10 in multiple seasons since.
Although BYU has only finished the year as a ranked team twice since 2010, the program’s final year in the Mountain West, the team is a nationally respected brand that could see a boost with its jump to the Big 12 Conference this fall.
6. Iowa
The 1985 Hawkeyes reached the nation’s No. 1 spot in the AP polls, only to finish the year with a 10-2 record and a loss in the Rose Bowl. That team was ranked college football’s No. 1 for five straight weeks until a 22-13 loss to Ohio State to start the month of November.
Iowa is normally viewed as a Big Ten program that is solid, if unspectacular. The Hawkeyes haven’t necessarily kept up with the bigger Big Ten teams and tend to lose between 3-5 games per season while churning out several NFL Draft prospects each spring.
Just two short seasons ago, however, the Hawkeyes reached the nation’s No. 2 spot in the AP poll after defeating ranked opponents in Indiana, Iowa State, and Penn State — only to fall apart in a 24-7 loss to Purdue and a 27-7 loss to Wisconsin the following week. Iowa’s defense would rank 13th in the nation in terms of points allowed (19.2 points per game), but the offense struggled mightily, failing to score more than 17 points in five different games.
5. Purdue
The 1968 Boilermakers began the college football season with the nation’s No. 1 ranking after going 8-2 the previous year. Purdue lived up to the billing for several weeks, including a defeat of No. 2 Notre Dame in Week 2. The good times didn’t last, though, as the Boilermakers lost 13-0 to Ohio State just two weeks later.
The relative success of the Purdue program in years past is contrasted with today: the Boilermakers haven’t finished in the AP Top 25 since 2003. In the two decades since that year, Purdue has eclipsed the eight-win mark only once (in 2021).
Since 2003, Purdue has compiled a 65-100 mark against fellow Big Ten opponents (only a 39.4% winning percentage). This win-loss mark is worse than nine other conference programs, including Northwestern and Minnesota.
4. Virginia
The 1990 Cavaliers football team reached a 7-0 record and had been ranked as the country’s No. 1 team for two straight weeks. The good times, however, quickly came to end as No. 1 Virginia lost to No. 16 Georgia Tech 41-38 at home.
The Cavaliers would finish the season by losing four of their five final contests — including a 38-13 loss to in-state rival Virginia Tech, which was then an Independent.
Virginia hasn’t done much lately on the gridiron, compiling only two winning seasons in the past dozen years. The Cavaliers’ 64-97 record against conference opponents in the past two decades ranks third-to-last out of the ACC’s current teams, ahead of only Duke and Syracuse. After two straight .500 years, Virginia finished 2022 with a 3-7 record and two canceled games at the end of the regular season.
3. UCLA
The Bruins spent two weeks of the 1988 season as the AP poll’s No. 1 team after beginning the season with a 7-0 record and wins against Nebraska and Washington. A 34-30 loss to Washington State ended the Bruins’ national title hopes, as did a later loss to then-No. 2 USC.
In a five-year stretch between 2016 and 2020, UCLA failed to record a single winning season. UCLA has since cobbled together 8-4 and 9-4 records in the past two seasons with uber-talented quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson. Although the Bruins have some optimism (probably?) about heading to the Big Ten with USC under head coach Chip Kelly, they’re not anywhere near national contender status. Not yet, at least.
2. Mississippi State
The Bulldogs actually held the distinction of being the nation’s No. 1-ranked team in the AP polls in 2014, when then-head coach Dan Mullen and quarterback Dak Prescott led the squad to an 8-0 start and a four-week stint at No. 1.
Those dreams of a college football national championship came crashing down, however, after a loss to No. 4 Alabama in mid-November. Mississippi State would go on to finish the season 10-3 after two more losses to Egg Bowl rival Ole Miss and to Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl.
The Bulldogs have had three losing seasons in the past seven years and seem stuck in SEC West mediocrity or slightly above-average performances.
1. Syracuse
The 1960 Orangemen were the defending national champs following an undefeated 1959 campaign and a Cotton Bowl win against Texas. The brief stay at the AP No. 1 spot (the program’s most recent) in Week 3 of the 1960 season came to end after an unconvincing 15-6 win against Holy Cross.
Interestingly enough, Ernie Davis was a part of both the 1959 and 1960 Syracuse teams, but it wasn’t until 1961 that he won the Heisman Trophy following a year in which he accounted for 980 all-purpose yards and 14 touchdowns in just 10 games.
The Orange have only put together two winning records in the past nine seasons. While last year’s 7-6 finish under head coach Dino Babers was the program’s best performance in four seasons, the Orange have a long way to go in contending in the ACC and on the national stage.