Not surprisingly, a who’s who of college football elites have been very successful in the won-loss ledger over the last half-decade plus a year.
In a note sent out by the fine folks in the Wisconsin sports information department -- it’s truly one of the best SIDs in the country -- Alabama has 72 wins over the past six seasons, the most for any Power Five team in the country. Oregon is the only other team with at least 70 wins, with the Ducks hitting exactly that mark from 2009-14.
The next five in order are Ohio State (67), Florida State (65), Stanford (62), LSU (61) and UW (60).
The Tide won three BCS titles in that span (2009, 2011, 2012), with the Buckeyes (2014) and Seminoles (2013) accounting for two of the other three. Auburn claimed the other in 2010; the Tigers have won 53 games the past six seasons.
There were 10 other teams that averaged at least nine wins a season in that span: Michigan State with 59; Oklahoma and TCU with a Big 12-best 59 wins (the latter spent three seasons in the Mountain West during that time); Clemson, Nebraska and Oklahoma State with 57; South Carolina with 56; and Georgia, Missouri and Virginia Tech with 54. An additional nine teams, counting Auburn, compiled at least 50 wins: USC (53); Baylor, Kansas State and Notre Dame (51 each); and Florida, Georgia Tech, Louisville and Texas A&M (50 each).
In a development that should surprise absolutely no one, Big 12 bottom-feeder Kansas is at the opposite end of the success spectrum with 17 wins, the fewest for any Power Five member. To put the Jayhawks’ football struggles into perspective, you have to go back 16 years, to 1999, for KU (74 wins) to top the 72 wins UA has over the past six seasons -- and that’s with a 12-win season (2007) in the mix. Take that out, and you’d have to go back another three years to 1995 for their win total (75) to exceed the Tide’s.
There are two other P5 teams that failed to win at least 20 games in this particular time frame, and both come from the Pac-12: Colorado (18) and Washington State (19). For the other three Power Five conferences, Indiana of the Big Ten (23), Kentucky of the SEC (27) and Virginia and Wake Forest of the ACC (26 each) had the fewest wins for their respective leagues.
Also unsurprisingly? Boise State leads all Group of Five programs with 69 wins.