College Football Stock Report

Momentum is everything in college football. When momentum is on your side it seems like nothing can go wrong, the game comes easy and fans rejoice. One bad turn of events and a team can enter a downward spiral that feels like it will never end. Like in a game, a season has momentum and even the program itself has momentum. Today we look at each program as a stock and decide if the stock’s momentum is trending up or down. For the purposes of our College Football Stock Report we will use the teams wins per season over the past 10 seasons as our baseline metric.

Steady at the Top

These programs have been at or near the top of the college football ladder the past decade and we don’t see any reason to think that won’t last. They can’t go up, because there’s really no where higher to go, but we felt they should be mentioned for maintaining excellence. They are the steady leaders in the College Football Stock Report.

Alabama

No surprise here, Alabama has won at least 10 games every season this past decade, no other team can make that claim. Nick Saban’s program has won four championships and is a contender every season. Recruits flock to Tuscaloosa, they win games there, develop their game and then move on to the NFL. The machine is functioning at optimal levels and the Position U Rankings indicate the elite level of talent Alabama is producing. The Tide is at the top of college football and have set the standard all other teams are aspiring to reach.

Clemson

The Tigers have won at least 10 games in 9 of the last 10 years. They have been a strong program all decade and have really flourished the second half of the decade winning two championships. Recruiting has continued to improve over the course of the decade and the Tigers are in the playoff discussion annually. They have dominated the ACC having won the conference championship five years in a row. Clemson’s QB play the past decade has really stood out as the Tigers went from Tajh Boyd to Deshaun Watson to Kelly Bryant to Trevor Lawrence. Clemson has become a college football destination and we don’t see that changing in the near future.

Ohio State

Ohio State could have ended up on a different part of this list but the Buckeyes have managed potential pitfalls excellently. When Jim Tressel abruptly resigned after the 2010 season the Buckeyes had a 6 win season; their only non 10 win season in the past 10 years. Immediately after the season the University hired Urban Meyer who elevated the storied program to new heights. The Buckeyes won the National Championship in the 2014 season and have maintained a high level of play since. Then when Meyer suddenly retired after the 2018 season the Buckeyes were faced with what could be another momentum shifting moment. Ohio State hired Ryan Day and he continued the program on the trajectory Meyer had established. The Buckeyes are a perennial college football playoff contender and have navigated troubled waters to assure they stay there.

Stock Up

These programs have raised their stock recently. The wins are increasing and the play on the field is trending up. Everything is relative, so we are comparing to where the program was recently and where it is trending now. These programs are rising in the College Football Stock Report.

LSU

The Bayou Bengals have been winning all decade, the win totals don’t lie. Les Miles had established a strong successful program that competed on a regular basis, but there was always something missing. The defense was outstanding and the offensive skill players went on to become good players in the NFL, but at LSU the offense was stuck and holding the program back. Ed Orgeron arrived to replace Les Miles and early on it didn’t appear much was going to change in this regard. But in 2018 there were signs of life, new QB Joe Burrow was playing good football and the offense was showing progress. In 2019 the Tigers stock soared, Burrow came into his own and the offense exploded. It will be interesting to see if LSU can maintain this new level of play without Burrow, but for now the Tigers are definitely stock up.

Penn State

The Nittany Lions have a rich football history but are emerging from a dark time for the program. The program was under heavy sanctions the first half of the past decade and as a result was winning about 7 games a year. James Franklin arrived in 2014 and began to raise the program back to past glory. The wins have returned as Penn State has won 11 games three times in the last four years. They did not win 11 games any of the 6 seasons prior to this stretch. The Program has really hit it’s stride and is consistently competing with Ohio State atop the Big Ten East. The Nittany Lions are back to winning games and putting players in the NFL, a trend we expect to continue going forward.

Washington

The Huskies started the past decade as a 7 win team, and really hit their stride the last four seasons. Although this past season was a down year (still 8 wins) and Chris Peterson has resigned, the program as a whole is clearly rising. Hiring Jimmy Lake gives the Huskies a good chance at continuity, which would continue the upswing. The talent that Washington has collected is evident on the football field but there is plenty more to come, the Huskies have recruited well over the past several seasons and have a lot of talent in the pipeline. The Washington program has trended up and we are optimistic that this trend will continue going forward.

Florida

Florida had been a national power in the mid 2000s but when Urban Meyer resigned after the 2010 season the program fell on hard times. The Gators hired Will Muschamp but after four seasons without much success Florida moved on to Jim McElwain which lead to four seasons the same. In 2018 the Gators hired Dan Mullen to attempt to right the ship, and the two seasons since have been the best two year span this decade. Mullen has won 21 games in the last two seasons and the Gators are a major factor in the SEC heading into the 2020 season. Mullen has flipped the momentum and has the Florida program on the rise.

Cincinnati

The Bearcats have really clicked under Coach Luke Fickell. Cincinnati has had good seasons in the early part of the decade but had won just four games in 2016 and 2017. Those seasons are a distant memory now as Fickell has led the program to back to back 11 win seasons. The program’s stock spiked over the past two years but its the staying power that has us intrigued. Fickell turned down a job opportunity at Michigan State providing stability to a program that has been used as a launching pad in the past. He also landed the best recruiting class in the AAC according to 247Sports adding a high level of talent to the program. This stability and influx of talent gives the Bearcats a chance to maintain this upward trend into the future.

Texas

We are aware that Tom Herman has not lived up to expectations yet at Texas. But expectations are one thing and the reality of how low the Longhorn program had fallen is another. In 2014 – 2016 the program had only won 16 games, in the three seasons since the Longhorns have won 25 games. That’s an improvement of three wins per season, which is no small feat. Texas expects to compete for championships and that hasn’t happened yet, but the program seems to be rising from the depths it had fallen to in the Charlie Strong era. The program is stock up but there is more work to be done in Austin and we will find out if Herman is the man to get the job done.

Stock Down

These Programs have been going the wrong way the last few years. They saw better days over the past decade, but those better days are in the past now and they have been trending the other way recently. They risk falling towards the bottom of the College Football Stock Report.

Stanford

At the start of the decade the Stanford program was rolling, Andrew Luck was the quarterback, Jim Harbaugh was the coach and everything looked rosy. Luck and Harbaugh left for the NFL, but David Shaw came in and maintained the identity of the program and the Cardinals kept winning games in the PAC 12. The program won 8 more games every year until this past season when the wheels came off the bus. Stanford fell apart in 2019, winning just 4 games with none of those wins coming in the month of November. One season does not always doom a program but falling apart the way Stanford did is a bad omen for the future. Shaw has time to get this straightened out but he better hurry because right now the Stanford stock is trending down.

Florida State

Five years ago no one would have guessed Florida State would be stock down. The program was running off double digit win seasons repeatedly and recruiting at a high level. Jimbo Fisher left after the 2017 season on bad terms and Willie Taggart was hired to replace him. Taggart’s two seasons at Florida State were a disaster, as the team won only 11 games in the two seasons combined. Florida State had a better roster than what the results would indicate but the Seminoles’ culture was a real problem under Taggart. The Program acted swiftly cutting ties with Taggart midway through his second season but the damage was significant. Mike Norvell takes over after a successful run at Memphis but he has his work cut out for him as the stock in Tallahassee is definitely down.

Michigan State

The Spartans were rolling the first half of the decade. Things were unsteady at Michigan and Mark Dantonio and company capitalized. The Spartans were the best team in state and a regular contender for the Big Ten championship. In 2015 Michigan State was a participant in the College Football Playoff, but hasn’t been the same since. A three win season in 2016 was a surprise to the Spartan faithful but the program bounced back and won 10 games in 2017 leaving many to believe Dantonio had righted the ship. It turned out 2016 was an indicator of the direction of the program and 2017 was the aberration. The Spartans have since had back to back 7 win seasons in which the offense has been putrid. Dantonio resigned after the 2019 season but new coach Mel Tucker has a major challenge ahead of him. We like Tucker as a recruiter and a coach but the lack of spring football this year puts any new coach at a disadvantage. The Spartans momentum is going the wrong way and Tucker will need to be creative to get the the Spartans back on track.

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SELU LSU 9718 045 Image by Tammy Anthony Baker is licensed under CC BY 2.0.