Last week, in recognition that 25 years of college football have been played in the 21st Century, Stewart Mandel of The Athletic took a look back at the top programs from the time period and then ranked the top 25.
The Utah Utes cracked the list, coming in at No. 22. To determine his rankings, Mandel used nine different metrics:
- Win percentage
- Number of BCS/New Year’s Six bowl appearances
- Number of national titles won
- Number of conference titles won
- Number of Top 10 wins
- Number of Top 25 wins
- Number of times ranked in the top 10
- Number of times ranked in the top 25
- Number of losing seasons
The Utes have a win percentage of .661 during the time period, have been to four BCS/New Year’s Six bowls and have won five conference championships. They also have 17 top 10 wins, 25 top 25 wins, have spent 9.7% of the time ranked in the top 10, 40.1% of the time ranked in the top 25 and have had five losing seasons.
“Utah, then a member of the Mountain West, posted undefeated seasons in 2004 (under Urban Meyer) and 2008 (under Kyle Whittingham) before moving up to the Pac-12 in 2011,” Mandel wrote.
“Whittingham has led the Utes to four double-digit-win seasons since then, with Pac-12 titles in 2021 and ’22, but they’re more often an eight- or nine-win team.”
Perhaps coincidentally, the Utes are sandwiched in Mandel’s rankings around two other programs whose head coaches have been there for a long time, as Iowa is at No. 23 and Oklahoma State is at No. 21.
Along with Whittingham, Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz and Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy are the three longest tenured coaches in college football.
In Mandel’s rankings, Ohio State is No. 1 and Michigan State rounded things out at No. 25.
TCU is the only other current Big 12 Conference team in the rankings beside Oklahoma State and Utah, coming in at No. 19.