FootballScoop's Year End Top 25
One hundred thirty-one teams play in the Football Bowl Subdivision. One of them will win the national title. One ring to rule them all.
In a sport where only a handful (or maybe not?) of teams can win the national title and half the teams are effectively cut out from even competing, a simple 1 through 25 ranking doesn't tell the full story of the season.
The AP Top 25 and its imitators will rank the 25 best teams of 2022, but the FootballScoop Top 25 ranks the 25 best seasons.
In a sport with 131 teams, there is not one path to success but 131. Who had the best seasons in accordance to their own history, their own resources, their own expectations?
That's what we're ranking here.
25. Toledo: What an odd season it was in Toledo. After the Rockets dropped their final two regular season games, there was open speculation Jason Candle and Rockets would part ways after the MAC Championship. But the Rockets won that game, beat Liberty in the Boca Raton Bowl, and in the process became one of just five FBS teams to win their conference and a bowl game.
24. Penn State: Not many teams go through entire seasons where they win every single game they're supposed to and lose all the games they're not, but Penn State pulled it off in 2022. In the Lions' case, the "supposed to win" column amounted to 11 games, including the program's second Rose bowl trophy ever.
23. South Carolina: South Carolina has shown steady, consistent improvement in Shane Beamer's first two seasons. The Gamecocks closed the regular season with the most satisfying 2-game stretch of football in program history, blowing out No. 5 Tennessee and then winning at No. 8 Clemson, ending the Tigers' 40-game home winning streak and leaving Death Valley victorious for the first time since 2012.
22. Florida State: After a 5-year down period that surely felt like 50, Florida State is back... back to being competitive. The Seminoles beat the eventual SEC West champions in a de facto road game, beat Florida and Miami in the same season for the first time since 2016, and shook off a 3-game losing streak to head into 2023 with a 6-game win streak, a likely preseason AP Top 10 ranking, and ACC championship expectations.
21. Utah: It'd be great if the Utah could bring a full, healthy roster to Pasadena one of these years, and the Utes surely would've loved a do-over on the final drive in the opener at Florida, but Kyle Whittingham's team was one of just five to repeat as conference champions in 2022.
20. Air Force: Air Force did not pull off an elusive Mountain West title (last one: 1998), but the Falcons did become one of eight FBS teams (and one of two Group of 5 teams) to post back-to-back 10-win seasons. Troy Calhoun's team also won the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy for the first time since 2016 and Baylor in the Armed Forces Bowl.
19. Eastern Michigan: Chris Creighton's doing such a good job he's making us all forget how hard it was to win at Eastern Michigan before he got there. His 7-6 mark in 2016 was EMU's first winning season since 1995, and this year's 9-4 mark with a Famous Idaho Potato Bowl marked the program's best campaign since 1987. EMU also won the Michigan MAC Trophy -- beating Central and Western -- for the first time since 2012.
18. Duke: Other teams pulled off bigger one-season turnarounds, but going from 3-9 to 9-3 at Duke, with a first-time head coach, is no small feat. Heck, going 9-3 at Duke is no small feat no matter the circumstance.
17. Kansas State: The Wildcats upset undefeated TCU win their first Big 12 championship since 2012 and their first Big 12 championship game since 2003, when they also upset a previously-undefeated team on their way to play for a national championship.
16. Kansas: Not only did Kansas end its 12-season, 6-head coach bowl drought, the Jayhawks returned to the AP Top 25 for the first time since the wheels fell off back in 2008. The only people who weren't surprised or impressed were the players and coaches who pulled it off.
15. UTSA: Only Georgia (28 and counting), Michigan (25) and Alabama (24) won more games over the past two seasons than UTSA's 23. Only Georgia, Michigan, Utah and UTSA repeated as conference champions. The Roadrunners lost the Cure Bowl to Troy, so I have a hunch Jeff Traylor might argue privately this season did not check all the boxes required to be successful. Either way, quarterback Frank Harris returns in 2023, so UTSA will have the opportunity to 3-peat... in a tougher conference.
14. South Alabama: Granted its a history that dates back only to 2009, but under head coach Kane Wommack, the Jaguars won 10 games for the first time ever. A 10-6 loss to Troy was the only thing keeping USA out of the Sun Belt championship, and a field goal at the buzzer was the only thing stopping the Jags from beating UCLA at the Rose Bowl.
13. New Mexico State: Oh, what a difference a head coach makes. Jerry Kill has won conference titles at Southern Illinois and Northern Illinois and fielded winning teams at Saginaw Valley State, Emporia State, and Minnesota, but his best job in 23 seasons of head coaching across six universities may have been this one. A New Mexico State team that went 2-10 a year ago won a bowl game and finished with a winning record.
12. James Madison: JMU did not play for the Sun Belt title or in a bowl game, but only because the Dukes weren't allowed in. Curt Cignetti's team won their first five games as a full-fledged FBS program, joined the dadgum AP Top 25 for a week, and ended their season by pummeling Coastal Carolina for a Sun Belt East championship that conference rules did not allow them to actually win.
11. UConn: Even Kansas was poking UConn football with a stick over the past few years. The school that abandoned its football program to the purgatory of FBS independence, then went 1-11 just a year ago (its only win coming against non-scholarship Yale, by six points) made a bowl game in 2022. Not only that, the Huskies defeated Boston College for the first time ever.
10. Oregon State
Jonathan Smith's Beavers opened the season by beating eventual Mountain West runner-up Boise State, eventual MW champion Fresno State, and by pummeling FCS semifinalist Montana State. Nothing to hang a banner about, sure, but an encouraging sign in Corvallis nonetheless. After opening Pac-12 play with losses to eventual conference finalists USC and Utah, the Beavers lost only once more. Oregon State closed the year by defeating Oregon in a Civil War pitting two ranked teams for the second time in program history, then by pummeling Florida in the Las Vegas Bowl.
Oregon State celebrated the third 10-win season in program history and will end the year with its highest AP ranking since 2000, and its second-highest since 1967.
9. USC
In an age where all Hollywood does is reinvent existing IP, Lincoln Riley pulled it off better than anyone at Disney or Universal. No, the Trojans did not win the Pac-12, make the Playoff or win their New Year's Six bowl, but imagine any USC fan 14 months ago being disappointed by approaching and then whiffing on those accomplishments. The 2023 standards will be different, which proves 2022 was a blockbuster success.
8. Michigan
Yes, the Fiesta Bowl was an unmitigated disappointment. Sure, no one knows what the future holds. But this program did nothing but win from February to New Year's Eve. The Wolverines beat Ohio State and Michigan State in the same season for the first time since 2003, won back-to-back outright Big Ten championships for the first time since 1991-92, became the third team ever to go 10-0 against a Power 5 conference schedule, and handed Ohio State their biggest beatdown in living memory.
7. Washington
Want to re-center your program in a hurry? Get yourself a head coach and a quarterback. Washington got both in Kalen DeBoer, who brought in Michael Penix, Jr., from Indiana, who promptly led the nation in passing -- by nearly 20 yards per game.
After going 4-8 a year ago, Washington jumped to 11-2, beat Oregon, beat Texas in the Alamo Bowl, and will finish on the cusp of the AP Top 10.
6. Fresno State
The greatest feeling a Fresno State football team can reasonably achieve is to win a Mountain West championship on the blue turf, which is something the Bulldogs did in 2022.
After losing Kalen DeBoer to Washington, Fresno State welcomed back Jeff Tedford, shrugged off a 4-game losing streak and won their final nine games of the season, including a 28-16 MW Championship victory at Boise and a 29-6 pummeling of Washington State in the Jimmy Kimmel Bowl.
"I think it's a little more special because of the way we started," Tedford said after winning the conference title. "While we were disappointed in the beginning, we weren't discouraged. It's hard when you go into fourth quarters of games and you work so hard you don't come out with a reward - to keep coming back the next day and still have the same attitude and belief. But these kids did."
5. Tennessee
After starting the year unranked, Tennessee beat a Nick Saban-coached Alabama team for the first time ever and recorded its first 11-win season, its first New Year's Six win, and its highest AP poll finish since 1999.
4. Troy
The Trojans dropped their first two games against FBS opponents, and then didn't lose again. Troy ran through Sun Belt play a Hail Mary away from being undefeated, blew out Coastal Carolina in the Sun Belt Championship, beat C-USA champion UTSA in the only Conference Champ vs. Conference Champ bowl game, and will end the year in the AP Top 25 for the first time in program history.
3. Tulane
Tulane went undefeated and finished No. 7 in 1998, but 2022 may have been more satisfying. The Green Wave set the FBS record for a single-season turnaround, going from 2-10 in 2021 to 12-2 in '22. The 2022 team did not go undefeated but they did beat all but one team they played, avenging a November loss to UCF by sending the Knights out of the American with a 45-28 win in the conference title game. Willie Fritz's team beat eventual Big 12 champion Kansas State, 2-time defending AAC champion Cincinnati, and rallied from down 15 with under five minutes to play to stun USC in the Cotton Bowl -- Tulane's first New Year's Six win since Ted Cox's bunch knocked off mighty Temple in the 1934 Sugar Bowl.
It may not have been a perfect season, but it's difficult to imagine a more satisfying one.
2. TCU
Okay so, not the ending anyone wanted. But my word what a story before the finale. TCU became college football's first true Cinderella story, rising from 5-7 to the national championship game, with a first-year coaching staff, at one of the smallest schools in FBS.
1. Georgia
What is there to say? Georgia became the first repeat national champion in a decade and the first back-to-back champ of the Playoff era, and did so with a 15-0 record capped by the biggest bowl game blowout, ever. Kirby Smart's program supplanted Alabama as the Top Dawgs in the sport, and it'll take a significant event -- and perhaps lots of bad luck -- to snap Georgia's ongoing 17-game winning streak.
Also considered: Arizona, Illinois, LSU, Maryland, Ohio, Purdue, Rice, Texas Tech
