US News College Rankings and Football

US News and World Report's college rankings are extremely problematic, and their weighting toward money, money, and more money means that private schools with large endowments, high alumni giving, and a high freshman retention rank higher than public schools with low average alumni giving and many part-time students. However, they are an interesting measure to balance schools that might be considered places to go where academics "means something." Since a few high-profile college football players have recently claimed that academics have influenced their school selection, I thought I'd take a look at which schools might be considered academically strong and also athletically strong.

I've reconstituted US News' 2006 list and included only schools with Division I-A football teams (this excludes Cal Tech, unfortunately. They used to have a team, a really long time ago. So did the University of Chicago, also in the US News top 10).

5. Duke
5. Stanford
12. Northwestern
17. Rice
18. Vanderbilt
18. Notre Dame
20. Cal
23. Virginia
25. UCLA
25. Michigan
27. North Carolina
27. Wake Forest
30. USC
34. Wisconsin
37. Georgia Tech
40. Boston College
42. Illinois
43. Tulane
45. Washington
48. Penn State
50. Syracuse
50. Florida
52. Texas
55. Maryland
55. Miami
58. Georgia
58. Pittsburgh
60. Ohio State
60. Rutgers
60. Iowa
60. Purdue
60. Texas A&M
68. Connecticut
71. BYU
71. SMU
74. Indiana
74. Michigan State
74. Minnesota
78. Baylor
78. Clemson
78. Colorado
78. Virginia Tech
78. North Carolina State
85. Auburn
85. Iowa State
85. Missouri
85. Tennessee
93. Tulsa
97. TCU
97. Arizona
97. Nebraska
97. Kansas
104. Alabama
109. Florida State
109. Oklahoma
109. South Carolina
115. Buffalo
115. Oregon
120. Colorado State
120. Utah
120. Washington State
120. Kentucky

When we compare this to the BCS top 25 ranking* from after the season but before the bowl games (and the BSC ranking has as many problem as the US News rankings, so all of the data is extremely faulty, which makes for faulty conclusions, I know),

1. USC
2. Texas
3. Penn State
4. Ohio State
5. Oregon
6. Notre Dame
7. Georgia
8. Miami
9. Auburn
10. Virginia Tech
11. West Virginia
12. LSU
13. Alabama
14. TCU
15. Texas Tech
16. UCLA
17. Florida
18. Wisconsin
19. Louisville
20. Wisconsin
21. Boston College
22. Florida State
23. Oklahoma
24. Georgia Tech
25. Northwestern

There are a few teams that stand out as being at the top of all three lists (and so likely a fairly good indicator that they are considered both strong academically and athletically).

Northwestern, Notre Dame, and UCLA are in the top 25 of both lists (of course, both Northwestern and Notre Dame lost their bowl games, and UCLA was playing Northwestern, otherwise they might have lost, too).

Schools in the top 50 academically, including schools not ranked for football but who played in a bowl game: Boston College (won), Cal (won), Florida (won), Georgia Tech (lost), Michigan (lost), Penn State (won), USC (lost), and Wisconsin (won).

So that's your list: schools which are generally athletically and academically of a higher caliber.*

*The football rankings are much more volatile than the academic rankings; the football ones change from week to week, which the academic ones often don't substantially change from year to year. But the general trends are similar: some schools are regularly and historically at the top of both lists, including Michigan, USC, and Notre Dame.