Florida State’s football success is well-documented. FSU has three national championships over the last 22 years and the best overall record over the last three seasons. According to a study by Andrew Pentis of ValuePenguin, the Seminoles have managed to be one of the most cost efficient programs as well.
The August study looked at all 125 FBS programs over a 10-year period from 2004-2013 and determined FSU to be the nation’s ninth most cost efficient program as well as sixth among programs from Power 5 conferences.
Two criteria were used for the study. The first looked at each program’s costs, according to the Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics Data and the second looked at each program’s final annual ranking, according to Real Time Sports Rating’s Power Ranking metric. Costs were weighted at 35 percent of the outcome and each program’s annual finish was weighted at 65 percent.
“I guess my only hope is that the study reaches readers like yours so that more and more people — and college football fans particularly — are aware of the money behind college football,” Pentis told Noled Out. “I wouldn’t necessarily hope for anything beyond that and would leave any ramifications of the study to people that are smarter and more connected to the sport than I am. But I will say that there could be a lesson here about not having to spend and spend and spend in order to win, and Boise State is clearly the poster boy for that argument.”
Boise State was the most overall cost efficient program, according to the study followed by Cincinnati, Oregon, USC and BYU.
Pentis also broke the 125 schools into three groups based on size of the football budget. Schools with a budget of $7 million or less were categorized as “low budget”, schools with budgets of between $7-15 million as “mid-size budget” and programs with $15 million or more as “large budget”.
In addition to being No. 9 overall, FSU was third among large budget teams behind only Oregon and USC. Fellow ACC teams, Virginia Tech and Clemson, came in seventh and eighth respectively among large budget schools. Top overall program Boise State fell within the midsize range and Nevada was just ahead of Northern Illinois for low budget schools.
The Seminoles were also tops overall among Florida schools. Florida was next at No. 25 followed by South Florida at 38th, UCF at 44th and Miami at No. 53. Fellow ACC foe Duke finished dead last at No. 125.
“If I was an FSU alum and/or fan, I’d take pride in the fact that my program appears to be spending effectively while maintaining one of the winningest programs,” Pentis said. “Many schools have the resources of FSU but aren’t seeing the results. Also, if I was a Seminole, I would also take pride in the fact that the University of Florida ranked 25th, but something tells me your readers will have already scanned the list to see that very fact.”
ValuePenguin did a similar study with the nation’s 295 Division I baseball teams in June and concluded that FSU had the fourth most cost efficient program.
