How many good teams are there in college football?

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RememberMurray

RememberMurray

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I've noticed it's become very popular to designate various teams as "not good". An example: at least one poster has opined recently that North Carolina is "not good".

This got me wondering: What qualifies any team as "good" (vs "not good")?

Is a team good if that team is in the Top 25? This would lead me to believe there are 25 good teams, no more.

Is a team good if it receives votes in one of the Top 25 polls?

Is a team good if it is better than 70% of the other teams in the country?

I'm genuinely interested in the how we come to a conclusion on whether or not a team is good, and how many good teams are in existence at the present time. What say you, Gopher Hole? What deciding factors make a team good or not good in your eyes?

How many good teams are there in college football, right now?
 
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RememberMurray said:
I've noticed it's become very popular to designate various teams as "not good". An example: at least one poster has opined recently that North Carolina is "not good".

This got me wondering: What qualifies any team as "good" (vs "not good")?

Is a team good if that team is in the Top 25? This would lead me to believe there are 25 good teams, no more.

Is a team good if it receives votes in one of the Top 25 polls?

Is a team good if it is better than 70% of the other teams in the country?

I'm genuinely interested in the how we come to a conclusion on whether or not a team is good, and how many good teams are in existence at the present time. What say you, Gopher Hole? What deciding factors make a team good or not good in your eyes?

How many good teams are there in college football, right now?
Click to expand...

Not to be flippant, but one easy way to distinguish Good teams from Not Good teams would be to consider half of all CFB teams (by Division) "Good" and the other half "Not Good." And you can't know that until the end of the season.
 

When people say good I think they mean national contenders
And when people say not good they mean not as good as the national contenders


For instance
Ohio state and Oregon are good

Penn state I’m not sure

Everyone else is closer to average than national contender. But in passing I might say “not good”

Not good =\= bad
 

Some guy said:
When people say good I think they mean national contenders
And when people say not good they mean not as good as the national contenders


For instance
Ohio state and Oregon are good

Penn state I’m not sure

Everyone else is closer to average than national contender. But in passing I might say “not good”

Not good =\= bad
Click to expand...
I'm not sure Oregon deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Ohio State right now. In terms of the Big Ten, USC might be the closest team to Ohio State but there feels like a pretty big gap between the Buckeyes and the rest of the conference at the moment.
 

Buckeyes and USC will pla each other 3 times this year. Great series.
 


Some guy said:
When people say good I think they mean national contenders
And when people say not good they mean not as good as the national contenders


For instance
Ohio state and Oregon are good

Penn state I’m not sure

Everyone else is closer to average than national contender. But in passing I might say “not good”

Not good =\= bad
Click to expand...

By this definition, very, very few teams are good.

The Gophers, Iowa, Wisconsin... maybe 14 or 15 teams in the B1G are not good.

If that's the case, it makes me wonder why people bother watching the games.
 

Above .500 is good.

That's it, does that mean there are a lot of good teams, yes.

I feel like some of this "bad" stuff is influenced by social media where negativity and outlandish statements get engagement / response and reasonable / thoughtful things do not. People are incentivized to throw a fit ... so that's what they do, they're quietly trained. The medium is the message.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Above .500 is good.

That's it, does that mean there are a lot of good teams, yes.

I feel like some of this "bad" stuff is influenced by social media where negativity and outlandish statements get engagement / response and reasonable / thoughtful things do not. People are incentivized to throw a fit ... so that's what they do, they're quietly trained. The medium is the message.
Click to expand...

Good point.

I've never actually counted them, but it always seems as though there are far more posts on Gopher Hole after a loss than there are after a win.
 

.500 in conference for me is good. Below .500 in conference is not good. Typically though I think teams are in 4 tiers:
contenders
good teams
average to mediocre teams
crappy teams

I think both MN and NC are close to good or at the high end of average. I think they are pretty even. Neither are contenders and neither are crappy.

Just my $.02
 



"good" is a very subjective term - because it requires a comparison.

and it can change from week to week. a team may not look good one week, but they turn around and look good the next week, depending on the opposition.

but to try and answer Murray - I would generally put teams in the upper 40% of their division as good. there are 134 FBS teams, so 40% of that is 54 teams.

to correlate to a grading system:
top 20% = A (top quality) 27 FBS teams
21-40% = B (good) teams 28-54
41-60% = C (average) teams 55-82
61-80% = D (below average) teams 83-110
81-bottom = F (dead skunk stinkin' up the road) teams 111-134

you could tweak the percentages a little bit, but that is my off-the-cuff quick answer.
 


Interesting question and “good” is undefinable or contextual and personal but maybe could include:

1. Level of concern if playing them can be indicative.
2. For number of “good” teams I’d go with an America’s Top 40 number, not 25, not 10 or 12. More relevant at the end of the season than the beginning.
3. Know it if you see it. Eye test, more relevant early in the year. Do they find ways to win games, or lose. Do they seem to have talent, passion, fire. Good, great, or meh depends on perspective and snobbery level. Relevant maybe to mid to hopeful tier teams someone sent me this. Some might say this guy is amazing, some would say good, some would say derivative. Eye of beholder



 

FanSinceTheFifties said:
Not to be flippant, but one easy way to distinguish Good teams from Not Good teams would be to consider half of all CFB teams (by Division) "Good" and the other half "Not Good." And you can't know that until the end of the season.
Click to expand...
Being in Minnesota, of course, “Good” is really “not too bad”.
 



RememberMurray said:
By this definition, very, very few teams are good.

The Gophers, Iowa, Wisconsin... maybe 14 or 15 teams in the B1G are not good.

If that's the case, it makes me wonder why people bother watching the games.
Click to expand...

I think sports talk, sports writing (no matter how amateur), and fantasy sports play a part in all of this. If hardly anyone talks about a particular team, then many perceive them as not particularly good.

I'm not interested in sports talk and not too much in fantasy sports. I just like to watch the games. If a team loses more often than not, I'd say they're not good.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Above .500 is good.

That's it, does that mean there are a lot of good teams, yes.

I feel like some of this "bad" stuff is influenced by social media where negativity and outlandish statements get engagement / response and reasonable / thoughtful things do not. People are incentivized to throw a fit ... so that's what they do, they're quietly trained. The medium is the message.
Click to expand...

Good post! That's where I'm at. I'm reasonably satisfied with the Gopher football team if it wins more often than not. Obviously, the happiness level increases the more over .500 they finish. I think this is a reasonable standard when 9 of your 12 games are played against a very tough league.

Basketball is a bit different since 11 of your 31 games are played outside of conference and most of those come against teams of much lower stature. So, 16-15 really isn't so good for a power conference basketball team. Of course, current history plays a part. 19-15 seemed fairly good last season because we were coming off 4 straight losing seasons.
 


A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Above .500 is good.

That's it, does that mean there are a lot of good teams, yes.

I feel like some of this "bad" stuff is influenced by social media where negativity and outlandish statements get engagement / response and reasonable / thoughtful things do not. People are incentivized to throw a fit ... so that's what they do, they're quietly trained. The medium is the message.
Click to expand...
I think there is more relativity than that, but definitely a good generic definition.
 




All the D1 FBS college football teams are really good! They could whomp any high school team, most college football teams, almost any assembly of randoms, or a group of NFL Hall of Famers past the age of 40-45.

Good is defined relative to the other team. Minnesota is an unstoppable buzzsaw playing Rhode Island every week, and looks like an unmitigated, incompetent disaster playing Georgia or the Vikings.

Georgia would look Really Good against all college teams but would look Bad against the Falcons.

A very good team can look bad if the other team is better, and a very bad team can look unbeatable against a worse team.
 

Bayfield Gopher said:
Wait until November as it will tell us.

November is for contenders not pretenders.
Click to expand...

The description "contenders" can apply to teams competing for a national championship, or for an appearance in their team's conference championship game, or for an invitation to a New Year's Day bowl, or just for the chance to become bowl eligible.
 




Good = top 10 ranked teams that the Gophers lose to by a lot OR top 25 teams that the Gophers don't play
Bad = any team the Gophers win
 

on my chart, it goes like this for Fleck month-by-month (including this season)

August 4-1
Sept 16-6
Oct 13-12
Nov 12-15
Dec 5-1
Jan 1-0
---------
tot 51-35
 

short ornery norwegian said:
on my chart, it goes like this for Fleck month-by-month (including this season)

August 4-1
Sept 16-6
Oct 13-12
Nov 12-15
Dec 5-1
Jan 1-0
---------
tot 51-35
Click to expand...
12-15 in November is better than I would have guessed. Considering those are all Big Ten games and full of rivalry games and generally backloaded schedules that's not terrible.
 

I'd say the question is "Elite" teams and not good teams. I'd the top 10 is elite and a playoff will truly tell us who the best is. I'd say there are about 35 good teams after the elite.
 

I generally consider a good team to be one that is better than .500 (in conference) in a major conference, or a ranked mid major team. Might need to recalibrate now that the P5 seems to be splitting into tiers (Big 12 doesn't really feel like a power conference anymore).
 

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