SI’s Stewart Mandel breaks down the BCS programs—a quest prompted by the reaction to his opining that Georgia is not a national power.
Kings
Alabama, Florida, Florida State, Miami, Michigan, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn State, Tennessee*, Texas and USC.
* Tennessee is the lone school in the group that caused any hesitation. The Vols would have been a no-brainer 10 years ago, but they have fallen off the map a bit lately. In the end, I figured those 100 fans in Montana still know “Rocky Top,” the checkered end zones and that Peyton Manning went there.
Barons
Auburn, Clemson, Colorado, Georgia, LSU*, Texas A&M, UCLA, Virginia Tech, Washington and Wisconsin.
* While LSU is clearly a premier program right now, its big-picture tradition does not match those of the 13 kings. However, if the Tigers were to add another national title here in the next couple of years, they may well graduate to that group.
Knights
Arizona State, Arkansas, Boston College, Cal, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas State, Maryland, Michigan State, Missouri, N.C. State, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, Oregon, Oregon State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, Stanford, Syracuse*, South Carolina, Texas Tech, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington State.
* In normal times, Syracuse would qualify as one of the barons, but they’re just so darn bad and so irrelevant right now.
Peasants
Arizona, Baylor, Cincinnati, Connecticut, Duke, Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa State, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi State, North Carolina, Northwestern, Rutgers*, South Florida*, Wake Forest and Vanderbilt.
* Rutgers is another program that could be on its way up a tier, and South Florida is here by default because it’s essentially a start-up.
This might fuel a few “the Pac-10 sucks” e-mails, as it is the only “major” conference (the Big East needs another good year or two before we consider it anything other than a hoops conference) with no Kingswithout more than 1 King (national power program). The fact the LSU got left out will probably also fire up the Geaux Tiger crowd.
August 8th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
“All this shows is that Stewie is going to fuel the Pac-10 sucks e-mails as it is the only conference without a King (national power program). ”
Huh? USC is listed under Kings and we’re still in the Pac-10 last time I checked. Maybe you meant the Big East?
August 9th, 2007 at 9:06 am
[...] One more observation about Stewart Mandel’s “college football royalty” list: much has been made of Les Miles knocking the “real juggernauts” of the Pac-10, but according to Mandel, there is only one Pac-10 school in the “peasant” category: Arizona. The SEC, on the other hand, has three so-called peasants – Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and Mississippi State. We’re not sure what this means, other than the mention of peasantry reminds us of one of the greatest moments in cinematic history. [...]