College football has 136 programs at the FBS level for the 2025 season. Those teams are spread across 10 conferences (with two schools playing as FBS Independents), and compete for the right to go to the College Football Playoff and take their best shot at the national championship.
There haven’t always been this many teams at college football’s highest level, but the sport has always had a large number of schools spread across the country competing for the same thing. College football has been around for over 150 years, and some programs are just better at winning than others. But which programs are the cream of the crop, and which fall below that very lofty standard?
That’s the question that On3 Sports college football analyst Andy Staples attempted to answer on Monday. He put out a list of college football’s “blue blood” programs over the course of the sport’s history. The Oklahoma Sooners were an obvious choice to make the cut, and they did so. OU is a shoo-in as one of college football’s all-time historically great programs, a no-doubt inclusion in the blue blood club.
Staples used two criteria to make his list of 12 true blue bloods. First, the program had to be in the top 15 in all-time winning percentage, with a minimum of 750 total games played. Secondly, the program had to have at least one national title in at least two of three eras: AP or Coaches Poll in the two poll eras, or be the winner of the final game in the BCS and playoff era.
Oklahoma joined the Alabama Crimson Tide, Florida State Seminoles, Georgia Bulldogs, LSU Tigers, Michigan Wolverines, Miami Hurricanes, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Tennessee Volunteers, Ohio State Buckeyes, Texas Longhorns, and USC Trojans as the best programs of all-time. The Auburn Tigers, Clemson Tigers, Florida Gators, Nebraska Cornhuskers, and Penn State Nittany Lions just missed the cut.
Taking a look at those distinctions, I feel that there are a few levels that certain teams fall into. Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, and USC feel like obvious choices to me. Those five programs are the most important in telling the history of college football. Michigan, Texas, and Nebraska would easily make the cut for me as well. They fall a step behind the first five, but still should be pretty clear picks.
If I’m making this list, LSU and Penn State are probably safe if we capped the list at 12, with Florida and Georgia just sneaking in for me. Staples putting teams like Florida State, Miami, and Tennessee in over a couple of teams that missed the cut is a bit of a head-scratcher, and I think Auburn and Clemson bring up the rear of the 17 teams mentioned.
It’s hard for me to see the argument for the Seminoles, Hurricanes, and Volunteers making the list over the Cornhuskers, especially, but also over the Nittany Lions and Gators. The resume for FSU, in particular, is tough to ignore, but the ‘Huskers have got to be in there.
The good news for OU fans is that there’s no doubt about the Sooners’ place in college football. Out of the many programs that have played at the highest organizational level over the course of the long history of the sport, Oklahoma stands tall among the best of the best elite programs in college football history.
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