Top 25 programs all time in NCAA Football

I've often wondered why some programs are elite, and why they always feel like they should be in the elite status. How did they get there in the first place, and why do they stay there? Why do some programs feel they deserve to be winners? Why they fire their head coaches after a .500 season despite never having a losing season? I came up with a theory as to why and who a program becomes successful and stays successful.

To have a historically good program, you need to be either:
1. The flagship state school. It doesn't matter if your school name has state in it or not. Who ever heard of The University of Louisiana? When you think of football in Louisiana, it's LSU. Or Ohio and tOSU.
2. Have a desirable location. It's great to go to school in Sunny LA or Sunny Florida. Who in their right mind would want to live in a cold state over LA during the school year??

I started to put together a list on programs and their historical AP rankings. I picked AP rankings because it's been around a long long time, and they penalize teams for being on probation, but I started looking around and realized it had been done already.

Here is the list of total appearances in the final AP poll.



16 of the top 25 are the flagship state school
3 of the top 25 are destination schools
19 out of 25 are either main or destination schools

8 of the top 10 are flagship state schools
9 out of the top 10 are either flagship or destination schools

The 6 in the top 25 that don't fit either criteria are:
#3 Notre Dame
#11 Auburn
#19 Texas A&M
#20 Clemson
#22 Georgia Tech
#24 Michigan State

What's amazing about these 6, with the exception of Notre Dame, they are all in the same state as another top all time team.

So Ags, take heart. Despite being #2 in the state, despite a bad location, you are indeed, a top 20 program. Or at least until some of the programs below pass you.