The Nerdiest Title Game Yet
Below is from a Yahoo sports newsletter I get from Kendall Baker-
Michigan is the highest-ranked university to play in the CFP National Championship.
The four-team College Football Playoff era is ending with its most academically impressive matchup yet — by a wide margin, Jeff and I write.
By the numbers: Michigan (No. 21 in this year's U.S. News and World Report rankings) and Washington (No. 40) are the two highest-ranked schools to play in the CFP title game. And their combined ranking (61) is less than half the next closest.
• 2024: Michigan (21) vs. Washington (40) — 61 combined
• 2023: Georgia (49) vs. TCU (89) — 138
• 2018: Georgia (54) vs. Alabama (103) — 157
• 2015: Ohio State (54) vs. Oregon (106) — 160
• 2016: Clemson (61) vs. Alabama (103) — 164
• 2019: Clemson (66) vs. Alabama (106) — 172
• 2017: Clemson (66) vs. Alabama (107) — 173
• 2021: Ohio State (53) vs. Alabama (143) — 196
• 2022: Georgia (48) vs. Alabama (148) — 196
• 2020: Clemson (70) vs. LSU (153) — 223
The big picture: Washington will join Michigan next year in the Big Ten, which is basically tied with the ACC as the best academic conference in the new "Power Four" era. The average U.S. News and World Report ranking of member schools:
• ACC: 52.3
• Big Ten: 52.8
• SEC: 113.3
• Big 12: 137
Reader shoutout: Thanks to Yahoo Sports AM reader Richard Rothschild for the story idea. You're the best, Richard!
January 5th, 2024 at 9:26 AM ^
Should be #1. We are slacking!
January 5th, 2024 at 12:20 PM ^
My impression is that the USN&WR rankings consider some criteria not related to pure academic excellence.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:29 AM ^
So you CAN play football and school!
January 5th, 2024 at 9:29 AM ^
How is the SEC so far in front of the Big 12? Is Vandy raising the average that damn much?
January 5th, 2024 at 9:44 AM ^
Vandy (18), Florida (28), Texas (32), Texas A&M (47 - tied), Georgia (47 - tied) help balance out the LSUs and Ole Misses.
January 5th, 2024 at 11:08 AM ^
Don't be so quick to laud Georgia. Stetson Bennett was there for 7 years and didn't get a degree. And he's not the only one.
January 5th, 2024 at 12:58 PM ^
I mean, that's a football/big time athletics problem, and more specifically on Kirby Smart. The institution itself is quite good.
That said, the football program's GSR is truly pathetic.
The Bulldogs’ GSR of 41 for the period that ended with the 2022-23 academic year followed marks of 59 and 54 in the previous two reporting periods, respectively. The GSR represents the percentage of athletes that graduated after entering school six years prior.
To put Georgia’s 41% mark into perspective, that placed 259th out of 260 Division I football programs. Only Texas A&M-Commerce, an FCS school located northeast of Dallas, finished lower.
One thing to note is that GSR penalizes you for leaving early for the draft and transferring. Academic Progress Rate does not, so is that UGA's out?
GSR does not take such idiosyncrasies into account. Academic Progres Rate (APR) has a formula that does, and that is the metric that UGA prefers. However, the Bulldogs aren’t markedly better in APR relative to their peers.
Their latest mark of 965 (essentially 96.5%), which concluded with the 2021-22 academic year, ties for 125th among Division I programs. That ranks 10th in the SEC. Alabama and Ole Miss, which also send a lot of players to the NFL, are tied for first in the conference at 995 in the latest report.
Michigan OTOH did great: https://mgoblue.com/news/2023/12/6/general-michigan-ties-school-record-graduation-success-rate-in-ncaa-report
January 5th, 2024 at 11:20 AM ^
Now that conferences aren't based on regions, let's trade Nebraska(159), Iowa(93) and Indiana(73) for Florida, Texas and Georgia. I could swap MSU(60) for Texas A&M too.
January 5th, 2024 at 6:22 PM ^
Hard pass. Its bad enough we are playing the Pac12 all stars next year. People dont understand how little four or five 50/50 games help you when you are going into the season in the top 4. Give me 3 super teams a season and im good. That is an insto ticket to the playoff season ticket holders be damned.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:45 AM ^
Not just Vandy (18). Georgia (47), Florida (28), and TAMU (47) are rated highly by USNWR and, in the new look SEC, you also have Texas (32).
I believe Baylor is the highest rated Big 12 school at 93 in this year's USNWR college rankings.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:46 AM ^
It's not just Vanderbilt. UF, UGA, and TAMU are solid schools, and now they're getting Texas. I think the top ranked schools in the Big 12 now are SMU and USF at #89.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:32 AM ^
Actually even more so when you look at THE World University Rankings. Both in the top 25: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2024/world-ranking
January 5th, 2024 at 9:36 AM ^
Us poaching a lot of the old Pac 12 also really changes the conference hierarchy. We're now the second best school in the conference (behind UCLA), and just ahead of Washington.
Depending on if you count Hopkins in lacrosse, we have six of the top 50 universities in the world now, with Wisconsin just out of it at 63.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:43 AM ^
It depends on which ranking you review / use.
Northwestern is a very good, well recognized school.
Michigan and UCLA are two of the three highest regarded public universities in the country - and world. The third is Berkeley / Cal.
January 5th, 2024 at 10:16 AM ^
Yeah, for sure. As a conference, we're kinda light on "elite" private schools, but do have a very good number of research-intensive public schools, which tend to do better in global rankings than US rankings.
January 5th, 2024 at 10:32 AM ^
Just look at the AAU… it’s a foundation for the conference.
January 5th, 2024 at 12:15 PM ^
More precisely, I believe the conference was the foundation of the AAU.
January 5th, 2024 at 12:39 PM ^
US News Ranks Northwestern 7th...
January 5th, 2024 at 10:52 AM ^
My fiancee went to UCLA lol I take exception to this! (It's an amazing school, obviously, beautiful campus and did give me my future wife so I have to give them that)
January 5th, 2024 at 11:41 AM ^
Are you referring to the UCLA whose next conference football game will be as a member of the B1G?
And - congrats to you & your lovely future wife.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:36 AM ^
The dreaded double post. I'll use this to say that if we really wanted academic DOMINANCE, we would have picked up Stanford and Cal when we had the chance.
January 5th, 2024 at 9:57 AM ^
LSU is the Fredo of college football. "I'm smart!!"
January 5th, 2024 at 10:09 AM ^
Let’s not give too much credit there. Fredo’s a lot brighter than the average student there.
January 5th, 2024 at 6:24 PM ^
3rd base will always be the Fredo to our Godfather.
January 5th, 2024 at 10:13 AM ^
Nerdiest, in the context of college rankings, really means snootiest. Altho Clemson sorta throws that off a bit.
January 5th, 2024 at 10:34 AM ^
You’d have to put Cal Tech and MIT “up there” in the nerdy column. I don’t know if “snooty” is an accurate or fair description of those schools - which, IMO, are exceptional at what they do.
January 5th, 2024 at 11:59 AM ^
I think we're exceptional at what we do too. As are schools like Howard, Stony Brook, ASU, etc. that don't rank very high. And I dont deny that I pay attention to school rankings, but anyone who's worked has met great people and workers from a ton of different schools, and hot bags of air from places like Harvard.
January 5th, 2024 at 10:20 AM ^
It's the Power 2 Era baby. ACC and Big 12 are a huge step back from the top.
January 5th, 2024 at 6:26 PM ^
The SEC and BigTen are looking a lot like the NFC/AFC going forward. 24 teams each and they make the rules going forward?
January 5th, 2024 at 10:51 AM ^
Definitely a lot of cultural similarities. Beyond its academic excellence and rigor, Washington has a bit of the same aura of "elitism" that folks sometimes attribute to Michigan. Michigan was a world-class university in the backyard of the auto giants, while Washington is in the backyard of tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon (and of course, Boeing). Seattle and Ann Arbor both have a bit of a hipster feel.
January 5th, 2024 at 10:55 AM ^
Also holy crap Alabama has been in a ton of championship games lmao. What a win that was on Saturday
January 5th, 2024 at 11:36 AM ^
ACC is only that high because they added Cal and Stanford. The worst Power 5 addition to any conference outside of Rutgers to the Big Ten.
#fireRutgers
January 5th, 2024 at 11:50 AM ^
You don't think they were any good with a top tier of UVA, GT, UNC, Duke, WF, BC, FSU, VT?
January 5th, 2024 at 11:48 AM ^
I mean, ACC was already really good and then added Stanford and Cal.
January 5th, 2024 at 3:16 PM ^
Duh. But if they are mere tenths of a point ahead of the Big Ten it's obviously because they added Cal and Stanford to their traditionally weak football academic collective.
January 5th, 2024 at 12:03 PM ^
The only downside to playing Washington is that I sort of like them. Penix is a great story. They're a good school. Their dramatic turnaround is a great story. I'd much rather play a Georgia/Alabama/Clemson/OSU type team where you can hate them. (I know Georgia is a good school, but their football players are sort of ringers who don't necessarily go to class. See MGoHillbillie's post about Carson Bennett not graduating after 7 years.)
January 5th, 2024 at 12:34 PM ^
In the SEC, FOOTBALL IS KING
January 5th, 2024 at 12:39 PM ^
Aren’t we facing the UChicago Maroons Monday night?
January 5th, 2024 at 3:54 PM ^
LOL, Clemson vs. LSU.