Illinois Football All-Time AP Ranking

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#2      
Double Down
Shane Walsh said:
From the NG today, AP puts Illinois football at #51 all time. That is #12 in the current 14 teams and one point in the polls behind Northwestern. :eek:

http://www.news-gazette.com/sports/...2016-08-02/ap-illini-just-outside-top-50.html

These ranking were based on poll rankings over the last 80 seasons.
Ohio State took #1, in case you were wondering.
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Saw this yesterday. I was surprised to see us that low in the rankings compared to our conference, especially behind Northwestern.
 
#4      
Second and Chalmers
Not sure the methodology, but I was a little surprised by this. I would have figured using the AP poll would have advantaged a boom-or-bust program like ours over ones that had been more consistently okay.
 
#5      
AutoPoster 3000
Shane Walsh said:
From the NG today, AP puts Illinois football at #51 all time. That is #12 in the current 14 teams and one point in the polls behind Northwestern. :eek:

http://www.news-gazette.com/sports/...2016-08-02/ap-illini-just-outside-top-50.html

These ranking were based on poll rankings over the last 80 seasons.
Ohio State took #1, in case you were wondering.
Click to expand...

If your talking "all time," meaning all the way back to the 19th century, we're getting hosed a bit here, as the methodology in this survey doesn't favor us. They gave one point for every week a team appeared in the AP top 20 since 1936; two points for reaching no. 1; and ten points for winning an AP national championship. We won four "national championships"* between 1914 and 1927 that aren't counted, and our 1951 "national championship" was not awarded by the AP (Tennessee was their champion that year) so we got no credit for that either. Also, there were fewer total weeks to rank prior to the 1970s, when teams played 8-9 games a season without byes, which downplays our successes under Ray Eliot (although we weren't exactly AP top 25 mainstays during the Valek, Blackman, and Moeller eras, so perhaps that point is a wash). But even if you spotted us another 50 points in that survey, we'd still only get up to the low 40s. We were a powerhouse in the early 20th century and blipped on the radar here and there since but never really had one sustained, decade-long run in the modern polls that would have pushed us higher in a set of rankings like this.

* In quotation marks because "national championship" was a fairly subjective term in the 1910s and 1920s. In 1927, for example, we shared the national championship with four other teams, as there were ten different organizations awarding "national championships" that year. In our defense, we were the closest to a true national champion in 1927, winning five of the ten polls, including the Dickenson System poll, which was considered the most authoritative in that era.
 
#8      
ILL_INI
TEYPAY said:
This makes more sense... being ranked 25th and being ranked 3rd is NOT the same... doesn't change a lot but there are some tweaks.
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It puts Illinois ahead of Northwestern, Indiana and Rutgers in the Big Ten, which seems right for the period covered.
 
#9      
champaignchris
I don't see why this would surprise anyone. Over the same period, we're 12th of 14 on just raw winning percentage ahead of just Indiana and Northwestern and 10th worst among Big-5 conference members.

I think some Illini fans are in a bit of denial about how bad this program has been and for how long.
 
#10      
blmillini
champaignchris said:
I don't see why this would surprise anyone. Over the same period, we're 12th of 14 on just raw winning percentage ahead of just Indiana and Northwestern and 10th worst among Big-5 conference members.

I think some Illini fans are in a bit of denial about how bad this program has been and for how long.
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Not surprised but what a stupid way to measure. A number 1 ranking is a huge bump but #2 is no different than #25.
 
#11      
Fighter of the Nightman
Here's basketball, because why not make us feel better??

http://collegepollarchive.com/mbask...?sort=totapp&decade=all&rows=all#.V6NlufQ8KnM

7. Indiana
10. Illinois
11. Michigan State
14. Maryland
15. Ohio State
16. Michigan
21. Iowa
24. Purdue
39. Wisconsin
40. Minnesota
116. Nebraska
119. Rutgers
139. Penn State
148. Northwestern

But to make us feel sad again, we are NUMBER THREE for 2000-2006, behind only Duke and Arizona ... man, we fell hard.

EDIT: Looks like this is just simple appearances but still interesting.
 
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