FanShot

Top 25 Teams of 2004 - 2009

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#47 – 2008 Utah Why They’re Noteworthy: They went undefeated, and had a nice 31-17 win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. Billingsley had them 10th-best of the last six years, Colley had them 14th-best, and Sagarin had them 26th best. Why They’re Not Top Twenty-Five: Only having the 53rd ranked schedule was the first negative, but wasn’t the only one. What also kept them well off of the top 25 was the lack of dominance. Even their best win, by 14 against Alabama, wasn’t exactly an ass-kicking, and wasn’t against a true national elite (Bama ended 2008 rated 10th by the model). In two other chances for impressive wins, they beat Oregon St and TCU by only 3 points each (both at home). Throw in major struggles at a sub-par Michigan team (only won by 2) and a mediocre New Mexico team (only won by 3), and it’s easy to see why they didn’t really register as a great team in this model. Throw out margin entirely, and they could move a bit up on this list, but the schedule was poor enough to even then make them questionable for the top 25 of the last six years. #15 – 2004 Utah Why They’re Top Fifteen: The highest-rated non-AQ on this list, 2004 Utah was a really good team, a fact that sometimes gets lost in the historical shuffle. Their schedule (ranked 53rd) was nothing special, but they dominated it like few others, never winning by single digits, winning nine times by 20+ points, and five times by 30+ points. Why They’re Not Top Ten: The schedule. They did about as well as humanly possible against their schedule, but there’s a ceiling to how impressive any achievements can be against a schedule that didn’t even sniff the top 25, much less the top 10 of difficulty.

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