Meet the BCS-era Top 25

Who is No. 1? That debate rages weekly during each college football season, and often long after the season is over and the trophies have been handed out. The debate is as much a part of the annual ritual as the touchdowns, fight songs and bowl games.

ESPN's Prestige Rankings may settle a few bets, or start a few arguments. Point values were assigned for certain successes (win a national title, earn 25 points) and failures (get your program banned from the postseason, lose two points). We ran all the numbers through the computer to come up with the No. 1 program (and Nos. 2-119) of the past 73 seasons.

Following is the Top 25 FBS programs during the BCS era, with commentary by the ESPN Research team that worked on the project:

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