Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
Originally Posted by Anonymous
I was the OP on Clemson. I didn’t say they were going to challenge the top ACC this year or next. All I said was after beating Duke they will be ranked top 25. They hit 24. Obviously gonna be years before they can beat teams like Syracuse or UNC. My point was how fast they went into the top 25.

Had some time to kill and was curious how teams actually have performed in recent years.

Looked at 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022 (did not look at 2020 or 2021 because of covid modifications).

There were a total of 20 teams that ended up ranked in the "Top 10" in the final poll during that span.

Below are the only teams to finish the season ranked in the Top 10 at the end of the season and their average rank for that time span. If a team was not ranked in the Top 20 a final ranking of 25 was used to calculate their average.

1 - Maryland - 2
2 - North Carolina - 3
3 - Boston College - 5
4 - Stony Brook - 7
5 - Northwestern - 8
6 - Florida - 8
7 - Syracuse - 9
8 - Princeton - 9
9 - Virginia - 13
10 - Penn - 14
11 - James Madison - 14
12 - Notre Dame - 15
13 - Penn State
14 - USC - 15
15 - Navy - 16
16 - Loyola - 16
17 - Denver - 17
18 - Stanford - 19
19 - Towson - 21
20 - Rutgers - 22

Obviously the usual suspect are at the top. Teams that appear to be on the upswing Denver, Loyola, maybe Rutgers. Teams that have fallen off a bit: Penn State, Navy, Towson. COVID may have hurt Penn. Duke not in the mix.

Not out of line to say the above are 20 of the "Best" Programs. Maybe a few not listed that could be considered a Top 20 Program. Michigan, Duke, any others??

I wish Clemson the best but just do not see them cracking that list of Top 10 programs anytime soon. Top 20 - 25 yes.

Sorry but Rutgers is not on an upswing. Every week they drop in rankings and lost to unranked teams like Army & Penn State. heck, they almost lost to Vanderbilt today. Their preseason ranking was 8 and this week they are sitting at 22. I wouldn’t call that an upswing.

I think they were talking about the program as a whole as in teams that have not really been considered top 20, 10 years ago that now are starting to.