i hate that cliche. just because the campus doesn’t revolve around football doesn’t mean the team doesn’t have ample support. now that i know he went to furd it makes it even more ridiculous.

if someone could think of some system with which to quantifiy academics (research grants, stats of incoming students, etc) versus football team’s fan support (donors, avg attendance, tv ratings, etc), there is little doubt in my mind that we would be near the top.

looking at the us news college rankings, of the schools that rank above us these are the only ones with D1 teams: Stanfurd, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt.

Aside from Notre Dame, we’d have to rank above those other schools on such a scale.

It was a dumb comment, but it was in a chat format and all of the writers were trying (and failing) to come up with quips. Anybody who’s been out to memorial for a halfway meaningful game in the last 5 years knows what’s up.

Maisel is a jealous Stanford tool.

Beyond his comment, though, I rather like Pat Forde’s idea—unrealistic as it is—to create a 40-team Premier League of college football. The historic points-based ranking system ESPN also included is worth a look, too. One interesting result in the overall rankings, based on the seasons from 1936 to 2008:

44. California: 260
45. Stanford: 242

Remarkable that our two schools would check in right next to each other. Of course, if the points included the 1920s, Cal would be several places higher thanks to Andy Smith’s Wonder Teams. Also interesting to see is that decade by decade, Cal consistently ranks in the 40s—except for the pitiful 1980s (rank=102) and the 2000s, when the Bears must rank within the Top 20 (but I’m not an ESPN Insider so I can’t bring up the number).