April 1, 2007
Question: What would it take for a school like West Virginia, Louisville, Michigan State, or Purdue, to turn the corner and become an elite school like Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, USC, or Oklahoma? Could it be done in ten years on the field? If a good school finished in top 5 for 10 years running, with 2 national championships, do they gain elite status like FSU did under Bowden? What would it take? – DH
Who out there has the potential to be a new superpower like a Michigan or USC? Not LSU or someone who's already great. I'm talking about a bit of a sleeper. Also, what makes a really, really good program and an elite one? - GL
Answer: What would it take to become a superpower? Oh, several decades of winning at a high level, and even that doesn't assure anything. Just over forty years ago, Minnesota got the same respect Michigan or USC gets now, but it couldn't stay at a high level going downhill after winning the 1962 Rose Bowl.
Being considered among the elite of the elite depends on the timing. Is Alabama still considered a superpower? It's been to one BCS-level game since winning the 1992 national title, but it's still had a ridiculous amount of success.
How about Wisconsin? Three Rose Bowls within the last 15 years, a boatload of other good bowl wins, and a ton of national exposure, but there hasn't even been a sniff of a national title. Would UW then be considered a superpower if it won the national title this year? How about Kansas State when it was really rolling under Bill Snyder? Colorado, until recently, could've been put into the superpower category for year-in-and-year-out success. So could Washington. It takes something truly special to be Teflon and win, win, and win some more throughout the ages. Michigan football will never be truly awful for a long stretch. USC will never have more than a few losing seasons in a row. Ohio State won't ever be a last-place program. They're just too big.
To be a Florida State and break into the old boys club, a program has to be in the national title hunt for about a decade, win at least one, and be really, really, really good for about 25 years. To get there, it needs a great recruiting base, a big enough school to eventually get the support for the facilities needed to compete at a top level, and a whole bunch of luck. Keeping a superstar head coach around for a generation, like at West Virginia if Rich Rodriguez decides to never leave, would also help.
My sleeper to eventually get to superpower status is South Florida. It has the most fertile recruiting base to work with, a coach in Jim Leavitt who loves to be there and appears to have no interest in any other gig, plays in a relatively big market (Tampa-St. Petersburg) at a school with a huge student population and alumni base, is in a good league, and appears to be just on the verge of turning a corner into conference championship status. Check back in 10-to-15 years and see how it all worked out.
Note: Is BCS membership a prequisite$
