The AP poll is has been the most consistent ranking system over the long history of college football. Going by the final rankings, what programs come out best? Here are the top programs of the 1980s according to a CFN formula using all the AP’s final polls.

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It was the decade of the Miami Hurricanes with three AP national championships, Penn State won two, and BYU managed to pull it off in 1984, but Nebraska’s consistent greatness ended up making it the best program of the 1980s – at least according to the final AP rankings.

Taking all the AP final rankings, CFN devised a scoring system giving every AP national champion 25 points, the No. 2 team 24, No. 3 23, and so on down to the bottom. So even though Nebraska didn’t win a national championship, it still turned out to be very, very good.

1980 AP National Champions
1980 Georgia
1981 Clemson
1982 Penn Sate
1983 Miami
1984 BYU
1985 Oklahoma
1986 Penn State
1987 Miami
1988 Notre Dame
1989 Miami

1980s AP Rankings Greatest Teams

These rankings are created according to the CFN scoring system – this isn’t the official AP ranking of its all-time greatest teams.