The American Athletic Conference might be a shell of its former Big East glory, but it's still the home of some of the best bargains in college football. In fact, though the conference was something of a punching bag for teams from the so-called power five this year, our two picks for the best bargain college football teams hail from the AAC.
Cincinnati is once again college football's best team for the money, spending just $1.6 million per victory over the last three seasons. Part of that cost effectiveness is the result of success on the field, where the Bearcats have averaged more than nine wins per season, and another part is minimized spending. In fact, a whopping 63 schools have outspent Cincinnati football, which last year spent nearly $1 million just to buy out the former contract of head coach Tommy Tuberville, who alone makes upwards of $2 million per year in salary.
Just behind Cincinnati is AAC rival Central Florida, which has won more games than the Bearcats but at a slightly higher cost, spending $48 million on football - or $1.7 million per win - across the three most recent seasons for which data is available. The Knights have won consistently despite a recent conference change, joining the AAC from Conference USA for the 2013-14 season, and have averaged more than 10 wins per year over the last three seasons. Following UCF, and rounding out the top five, are Kansas State, Oregon and Mississippi State.
College Football's Most Valuable Teams 2014
The Wildcats were formerly college football's best bargain team, but they slipped thanks to an eight-win 2013 season coupled with rising expenses ($16.6 million last year, up from $11 million in 2010-11). Oregon has meanwhile been outperformed by just three other teams in the nation, and the Ducks have done it on a budget smaller than those of more than three dozen teams. Finally, Mississippi State had just missed the cut last year, but the SEC's lowest-spending team breaks into the top five this year after an impressive 10-win season. Falling off the list is Stanford, which is out of the top five (now at No. 7) for the first time since we began comparing pay and play in 2011.
To determine the best and worst teams for the money we compared the three most recent seasons, excluding this year's bowls, to football expenses across the three most recent years for which the data is available (2011-12 through 2013-14). As in past years, our approach assumes that one year's expenses influence the following year's performance. To correct for differing schedule lengths and bowl games, we also adjusted each team's win total to represent a 12-game season. In the past we limited our pool to the five AQ conferences, but with the beginning of college football's playoff era there are no longer any automatic berths; this year we instead used a minimum spending cutoff of $40 million over three seasons, which gave us a slightly expanded pool of the 71 highest-spending teams.
Across the last three seasons, no team has spent more per football victory than Colorado, our pick for the sport's worst team for the money. The Buffaloes have won just seven games in that time, tied with Kansas for the least of any team in our pool, while spending over $50 million. To put that into perspective, Mississippi State has built a competitive SEC program while spending $44 million across the same time period.
Immediately following Colorado are Pac-12 rival Cal and former worst-for-the-money squad Kansas, which finally fired head coach Charlie Weis after a second straight three-win season. Rounding out the bottom five are SEC teams Arkansas and Kentucky. Their inclusion, along with Auburn at the No. 7 worst-for-the-money rank, highlights how expensive it can be to try to compete with high-spending SEC powers like Alabama and LSU.
A final interesting note: The Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC are all represented on both ends of the spectrum; neither the ACC nor the Big Ten crack the top or bottom five.
