A history of the AP Poll

A while back, I started playing around with the AP Poll for college football. I took every AP Poll since the beginning in 1936 and assigned a point value to each final ranking. 25 points to #1, 24 to #2 and so on. This morning, I included newest poll and here are some results.

The overall top 25 teams, from 1936 season to present are:

1. Oklahoma
2. Michigan
3. Notre Dame
4. Ohio State
5. Alabama
6. Southern California
7. Nebraska
8. Texas
9. Tennessee
10. Penn State
11. LSU
12. (tie) Miami (Fla.)
12. (tie) Georgia
14. UCLA
15. (tie) Auburn
15. (tie) Florida State
17. Florida
18. Arkansas
19. Washington
20. Mississippi
21. Michigan State
22. Texas A&M
23. Georgia Tech
24. Iowa
25. Clemson

The top ten teams for the last ten years;

1. (tie) Oklahoma
1. (tie) Texas
3. Southern California
4. Ohio State
5. Georgia
6. Florida
7. Virginia Tech
8. Miami (Fla.)
9. LSU
10. Michigan

The top ten teams from the last five years;

1. Southern California
2. Texas
3. Ohio State
4. Oklahoma
5. LSU
6. Florida
7. Georgia
8. Virginia Tech
9. West Virginia
10. Boise State

Interesting factoids:

There have been 73 AP national championships. Of those, 10 schools: Notre Dame (8), Oklahoma (7), Alabama (6), Southern California (5), Miami (5), Ohio State (4), Nebraska (4), Minnesota (4), Florida (3), and Texas (3) have won 49 (67%) of them.

The longest current streak of being ranked in the final poll belongs to Georgia, at 12 years.

The longest national championship drought belongs to Texas Christian, who last won the AP title in 1938.

The longest ever streak of being ranked in the final poll belongs to Nebraska, at 33 years from 1969 - 2001.

A total of 129 teams have been ranked in the final poll at least once. #129 is Bowling Green, who was ranked #23 in 2003.

Back-to-back titles have been won by Notre Dame (1946-47), Oklahoma (1955-56, 1974-75), Alabama (1964-65, 1978-79), Southern California (2003-04), Nebraska (1970-71,1994-95), Minnesota (1940-41), and Army (1944-45).

Number 1 teams by decade:

1930s: Notre Dame
1940s: Michigan
1950s: Oklahoma
1960s: Alabama
1970s: Oklahoma
1980s: Nebraska
1990s: Florida State
2000s: Oklahoma

Based on current conference alignment, the all-time top 25 breaks down as follows:

SEC: 8 (32%)
Big 10: 5 (20%)
Big 12: 4 (16%)
ACC: 4 (16%)
Pac 10: 3 (12%)
Notre Dame: (4%)