What Have Power Five Schools Accomplished in the Lifetime of 2020’s Top Football Recruits?

Imagine that you’re one of the top college football recruits in the 2020 recruiting class.

Let’s say you were born in the summer of 2001 and now, as a rising senior in high school, you’ll make your college commitment sometime in the next year – maybe by the Early Signing Period in December.

As a blue-chip prospect, you’ve received countless recruiting materials in the mail in the last few years from prospective schools, you’ve visited several college campuses and you hear from fans across the country on Twitter whenever you announce that you’ve received a new scholarship offer from their favorite team.

Now you’re focused on where you want to spend the next three to five years of your life.

Factors like your relationship with the coaching staff, academics, proximity to home (so that family and friends can watch you play), playing time and fit in the school’s scheme are all important points of consideration.

But you also want to play for a winner.

Numerous schools that are actively recruiting you claim at least one national championship from the pre-World War II era, when multiple teams often claimed a national title in the same season based on conflicting voting and rating systems.

That history is great and all, but the state of a program 80 years ago doesn’t really concern you in 2019.

What does interest you is finding a Power Five school where you can shine for a team that will hopefully compete for conference championships and, if your future school’s schedule breaks right, the College Football Playoff.

All you know about schools personally — whether from firsthand experience, stories passed down from older relatives or highlights that circulate on Instagram and Twitter — is what their football programs have accomplished since you were born in 2001.

[RELATED: These Schools Have Been Ranked the Most in the CFP Era]

Here’s a look at what every Power Five school has accomplished since the start of the 2001 season.

If you’re a college football fan in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, etc., then the win and loss totals, conference titles and national championships listed below are going to look different from what you’ve lived through during your fandom.

But that’s the point.

This is an attempt to view the college football landscape through the eyes of a 17- or 18-year-old recruit who’s so young he may not remember much, if anything, about the Nick Saban era at LSU, the Pete Carroll era at USC or the Urban Meyer era at Florida.

The schools below are grouped by conference and listed in descending order of winning percentage since 2001.

Records are not adjusted for vacated wins, but schools that have had wins vacated are noted. After all, a five-star college football prospect from Ohio, for example, might have fond memories from watching Ohio State’s 12-1 season in 2010, even if the Buckeyes’ record that season is 0-0 in the eyes of the NCAA.

Keep in mind conference realignment and shared conference championships when looking at schools’ records and the number of conference titles they’ve won since 2001. Schools that have made the College Football Playoff Championship are credited with playing one bowl game that season, not two.

ACC

School	Record	Winning Percentage	Bowl Games Played	Conference Titles	National Championships	College Football Playoff Appearances
Clemson	173-66	72.3%	17	5	2	4
Florida State*	164-72	69.4%	17	6	1	1
Virginia Tech	164-75	68.6%	18	4	0	0
Miami (FL)	150-78	65.7%	15	3	1	0
Louisville	147-81	64.4%	14	6	0	0
Georgia Tech*	135-98	57.9%	16	1**	0	0
Boston College	132-97	57.6%	14	1	0	0
Pittsburgh	128-100	56.1%	14	2	0	0
NC State	124-103	54.6%	13	0	0	0
North Carolina*	107-117	47.7%	10	0	0	0
Wake Forest	105-117	47.3%	8	1	0	0
Virginia	102-121	45.7%	8	0	0	0
Syracuse*	93-127	42.2%	6	2	0	0
Duke	77-143	35.0%	6	0	0	0

*School’s record later adjusted by NCAA **Conference title later vacated

Big 12

School	Record	Winning Percentage	Bowl Games Played	Conference Titles	National Championships	College Football Playoff Appearances
Oklahoma	194-47	80.5%	18	11	0	3
TCU	167-62	72.9%	16	6	0	0
Texas	164-68	70.6%	15	2	1	0
West Virginia	149-79	65.3%	16	6	0	0
Oklahoma State	149-80	65.0%	16	1	0	0
Texas Tech	134-94	58.7%	14	0	0	0
Kansas State	133-94	58.5%	12	2	0	0
Baylor	104-117	47.0%	8	2	0	0
Iowa State	90-133	40.3%	9	0	0	0
Kansas	71-146	32.7%	4	0	0	0

 

Big Ten

School	Record	Winning Percentage	Bowl Games Played	Conference Titles	National Championships	College Football Playoff Appearances
Ohio State*	198-38	83.9%	17	9	2	2
Wisconsin	169-69	71.0%	17	3	0	0
Penn State	148-79	65.2%	13	3	0	0
Michigan	148-80	64.9%	15	2	0	0
Iowa	148-82	64.3%	16	2	0	0
Nebraska	144-89	61.8%	14	0	0	0
Michigan State	140-90	60.8%	13	3	0	1
Northwestern	122-104	53.9%	11	0	0	0
Maryland	113-111	50.4%	10	1	0	0
Minnesota	111-115	49.1%	13	0	0	0
Rutgers	102-120	45.9%	9	1	0	0
Purdue	98-126	43.7%	10	0	0	0
Illinois	80-138	36.7%	5	1	0	0
Indiana	77-139	35.6%	3	0	0	0

*School’s record later adjusted by NCAA

Pac-12

School	Record	Winning Percentage	Bowl Games Played	Conference Titles	National Championships	College Football Playoff Appearances
USC*	175-59	74.7%	15	8	2	0
Oregon	166-66	71.5%	16	5	0	1
Utah	154-73	67.8%	15	3	0	0
Stanford	136-90	60.1%	11	3	0	0
Arizona State	124-103	54.6%	12	1	0	0
UCLA	121-107	53.0%	13	0	0	0
California	114-110	50.8%	10	1	0	0
Washington	115-113	50.4%	11	2	0	1
Washington State	108-114	48.6%	8	1	0	0
Oregon State	107-116	47.9%	9	0	0	0
Arizona	103-119	46.4%	8	0	0	0
Colorado	94-132	41.5%	6	1	0	0

*School’s record later adjusted by NCAA

SEC

School	Record	Winning Percentage	Bowl Games Played	Conference Titles	National Championships	College Football Playoff Appearances
Alabama*	189-53	78.1%	16	6	5	5
LSU	179-55	76.5%	18	4	2	0
Georgia	178-61	74.4%	18	3	0	1
Florida	160-71	69.2%	16	2	2	0
Auburn	157-76	67.3%	16	3	1	0
Missouri	137-92	59.8%	12	0	0	0
South Carolina	134-93	59.0%	13	0	0	0
Texas A&M	132-95	58.1%	14	0	0	0
Tennessee	130-97	57.2%	11	0	0	0
Arkansas	121-105	53.5%	11	0	0	0
Ole Miss*	112-109	50.6%	8	0	0	0
Mississippi State	107-116	47.9%	10	0	0	0
Kentucky	97-124	43.8%	8	0	0	0
Vanderbilt	81-138	36.9%	6	0	0	0

*School’s record later adjusted by NCAA

Top Takeaways

As noted in this viral tweet from SB Nation’s Bud Elliott in the spring, only 10 schools have won a college football national championship during the lifetime of current recruits. Those schools are listed below in descending order of the number of national championships since 2001, then by winning percentage.

School	Record	Winning Percentage	Bowl Games Played	Conference Titles	National Championships	College Football Playoff Appearances
Alabama*	189-53	78.1%	16	6	5	5
Ohio State*	198-38	83.9%	17	9	2	2
LSU	179-55	76.5%	18	4	2	0
USC*	175-59	74.7%	15	8	2	0
Clemson	173-66	72.3%	17	5	2	4
Florida	160-71	69.2%	16	2	2	0
Texas	164-68	70.6%	15	2	1	0
Florida State*	164-72	69.4%	17	6	1	1
Auburn	157-76	67.3%	16	3	1	0
Miami (FL)	150-78	65.7%	15	3	1	0

*School’s record later adjusted by NCAA

That leaves some considerable gaps between where certain college football programs rank historically and where they stand today, using an 18-year sample size as the evidence.

Michigan claims 11 national championships, but as seen in the Big Ten table above, the Wolverines are currently living in a very similar neighborhood as Wisconsin, Penn State, Iowa and Michigan State.

That’s a good place to be, winning roughly two-thirds of your games and taking home a conference title every five to 10 years. But Michigan’s last national title was in 1997.

The last one before that? 1948.

Oklahoma missed the cut-off by just one year — last winning a national championship in 2000 — serving as another notable exclusion from the schools that have won a title while current recruits were alive.

The Sooners are operating at as high of a level as anyone not named Alabama or Clemson, having won roughly 80 percent of their games since 2001 and appearing in the College Football Playoff in three of the first five years of its existence. But a national title has eluded them for almost two decades.

With seven claimed national championships, Minnesota is a school whose modern standing is much different from its historical achievements. The Gophers last won a national title in 1960, but have recently settled as a run-of-the-mill program in the Big Ten.

To varying degrees, Nebraska, Tennessee and Georgia Tech could be categorized in a similar category as schools hoping to reclaim their previous status as one of the top college football programs.

That’s not to say that the programs mentioned aren’t attractive to recruits (Michigan landed a top-10 recruiting class in 2019, while Tennessee and Nebraska’s classes were ranked in the top 20) or that they can’t regain their footing as consistent national championship contenders, but the 18-year windows listed above might provide an important look-in-the-mirror moment for many schools and their fanbases.

MORE: How UConn’s Move Back to the Big East Impacts College Football