OSU has been the Big 12’s best program in the last four years

I’ve done some work at Football Study Hall and here on program rankings. I like to use the F/+ system to evaluate football programs. Now that we’re a few weeks into the current college football season, I thought it would be fun to take an early peek at what my 4-year program rankings might look like at the end of this season.

I use a weighting system I like to call “what have you done for me lately”. I weighed each team’s F/+ ratings this way:

2013: 40%
2012: 30%
2011: 20%
2010: 10%

Using this system, here are your top 10 college football programs. The numbers listed by each team are the weighted average F/+ ratings over the past four seasons. You can read them like this: Bama has been 40.1% better than the average NCAA football team over the past four seasons, and so on.

1) Alabama – 40.1%
2) Oregon – 34.1%
3) LSU – 26.7%
4) Florida State – 26.0%
5) Stanford – 25.9%
6) Oklahoma State – 25.0%
7) Oklahoma – 24.2%
8) Florida – 21.8%
9) Texas A&M – 21.7%
10) Georgia – 21.5%

That’s right. Your OSU Cowboys have a football program that has been on par with LSU, Florida State, Stanford, and OU over the past four football seasons.

OSU’s current F/+ rating this season is #11, so we will need to remain at this level or better to remain in this company.

Here are the 4-year rankings for each member of the Big 12:

6) Oklahoma State – 25.0%
7) Oklahoma – 24.2%
19) TCU – 14.6%
20) Baylor – 14.2%
28) Kansas State – 10.1%
36) Texas – 8.1%
44) West Virginia – 5.0%
49) Texas Tech – 3.5%
63) Iowa State – (1.7%)
114) Kansas – (18.6%)

A couple thoughts:

• It’s neck and neck between OSU and OU, but the Oklahoma teams have been far and away the best teams in the Big 12 over the past four seasons.
• I know they’ve been bad, but it’s still pretty shocking to see Texas at #6 on this list, and it’s even more shocking to see Baylor at #4.
• Kansas single-handedly takes the average Big 12 ranking from #30 to #38. Thanks guys!

If you’re really interested, here’s your top 25:

1) Alabama – 40.1%
2) Oregon – 34.1%
3) LSU – 26.7%
4) Florida State – 26.0%
5) Stanford – 25.9%
6) Oklahoma State – 25.0%
7) Oklahoma – 24.2%
8) Florida – 21.8%
9) Texas A&M – 21.7%
10) Georgia – 21.5%
11) Notre Dame – 19.5%
12) Wisconsin – 19.3%
13) Ohio State – 18.7%
14) Boise State – 18.5%
15) Michigan State – 18.4%
16) South Carolina – 17.9%
17) USC – 16.4%
18) Michigan – 14.9%
19) TCU – 14.6%
20) Baylor – 14.2%
21) Louisville – 13.8%
22) Clemson – 13.4%
23) Nebraska – 13.3%
24) Virginia Tech – 11.2%
25) Missouri – 11.1%