The Associated Press releases a Top 25 list every week during every football season and it has been more than a decade since Syracuse has found itself on that list. Now, the AP has released a poll that ranks every football program in the nation, taking their entire history into account. Syracuse finds itself at 41 on the list, just behind Maryland and ahead of Army.
Unlike the weekly AP polls, this “all-time” poll, in honor of the 80th anniversary of the first AP poll, did not have reporters vote. It used all of the previous AP polls to formulate the list. A point was awarded for every time the team grabbed a spot in an AP poll. An additional point is given for every time a team was ranked number one and ten points are given for a National Championship.
Syracuse racked up 221 points, just 631 points behind the best program of all-time, according to the AP, Ohio State. It is actually impressive that Syracuse has managed to crack the top-50, given that the Orange have taken a major step backwards in the past decade or so.
Obviously a significant portion of the points that the Orange have wrapped up in this poll come during the glory years of Syracuse football in the 50s and 60s and then the 80s and 90s. According to Syracuse.com, Syracuse made 92% of their AP poll appearances during those decades. Of course, Syracuse grabbed its one and only national championship in 1959.
While Syracuse fans are not (or should not be) expecting Babers to bring Syracuse to the level that they were at Ben Schwartzwalder, there is a certain feel around the program that the Orange are entering a new era. Many fans are hopeful that Dino Babers may finally be the one to bring Syracuse out of the decade-plus funk and into the AP poll once again. It is surely going to be a slow climb back to relevance but maybe if the AP does another all-time poll for its 100th anniversary Syracuse will find its way into the top 25.
