Cal ranked as the 45th-best college football program of the Associated Press era

The Associated Press released their Top 100 football programs in the 80 years that they’ve been ranking said programs. The California Golden Bears came in at #45, which is somewhat mediocre. Here’s the methodology used to assemble the rankings:

To determine the all-time Top 25, the AP formula counted poll appearances (one point) to mark consistency, No. 1 rankings (two points) to acknowledge elite programs and gave a bonus for AP championships (10 points).

The Golden Bears earned 199 of these points, compared to 1,112 by the #1 team (who doesn’t need to be named here because Go Bears, duh). Garnering less than 18% of their points feels even more underwhelming than that 45th ranking.

Here’s the Pac-12 breakdown:

The bad news gets worse with Cal ranking in the lower half of the conference...

Unfortunately, the AP started ranking teams a full decade after The Wonder Teams of Andy Smith (and four of our five national championships) or Cal would have been likely been ranked a tad higher.