As every college football message board debater knows, winning football games is transitive. In other words, if Team A beats Team B and Team B beats Team C, the fans of Team A are perfectly within their rights to talk trash to fans of Team C. Obviously, Team A could have completely wiped the floor with Team C, they just didn't happen to play each other. If Team D happens to lose to Team C, they are also deserving of as much scorn as possible.
Thus one way of ranking teams just counts how many teams' fans are permissible trash talk targets (minus those in the reverse situation).
Note: No FCS wins (or losses) are counted.
1t Kansas State 29-0
Surprised? The win over UCLA counts for a lot now, given UCLA's defeats of Houston (worth 9 wins) and Texas (worth 16 wins).
1t Stanford 29-0
Similarly, the win over UCLA allows Stanford to claim all of Texas' and Houston's victories.
1t Arizona 29-0
Arizona's wins over Iowa and Toledo help, but beating Cal is what really put Arizona up here. Cal beat Colorado, who beat Hawaii, who beat Army, who beat North Texas, who beat FAU, who beat UAB, who beat Troy, who beat Bowling Green, who beat Marshall, who beat Ohio.
4 Auburn 24-0
Auburn has three very good victories over Miss State (7 wins), USCe (13 wins), and Clemson (10 wins). The numbers don't add up because of duplicate teams; there are 5 different chains showing that Auburn is better than Louisiana-Monroe.
5 Nevada 23-0
Like for Arizona, Nevada's win over Cal is very valuable. Unfortunately, their win over Colorado State is completely worthless; they get credit for all those teams from Colorado beating CSU (and California beating Colorado).
6. LSU 22-0
LSU is the only team with 4 wins each against a team with a pulse: Mississippi State (worth 7 wins), WVU (7), Vanderbilt (6) and UNC (3).
7. UCLA 23-2
Their two losses are to undefeated teams and their two wins are against otherwise undefeated teams.
8. Florida 19-0
Tennessee's narrow win over UAB makes them worth 8 wins to Florida, while Miami (OH) is worth a respectable 6.
9t. Northwestern 18-0
The win over Rice was unexpectedly valuable. Since the Owls beat North Texas, Northwestern gets credit for the second half of the Cal chain that propelled Arizona to #1.
9t. USC 18-0
The win over Hawaii gives them a similar chain as Northwestern and Arizona.
11t California (18-2)
11t Boise State 16-0
11t Missouri 16-0
11t Texas Christian 16-0
15t Alabama 14-0
15t Colorado 17-3
17t Texas 15-3
17t Michigan State 12-0
19t Virginia Tech 12-1
19t South Carolina 12-1
19t Oklahoma 11-0
22t Oregon 10-0
22t Baylor 11-1
24t Clemson 9-1
24t Oklahoma State 8-0
24t Michigan 8-0
27t East Carolina 9-2
27t Nebraska 7-0
27t North Carolina State 7-0
27t Iowa 8-1
27t Hawaii 12-5
32 Texas Tech 10-4
33t Southern Mississippi 7-2
33t Tennessee 7-2
33t Penn State 6-1
33t Illinois 6-1
33t Army 11-6
33t Florida State 6-1
33t West Virginia 6-1
33t Houston 8-3
33t Ohio State 5-0
42t Wisconsin 4-0
42t Air Force 5-1
42t Utah 4-0
42t Mississippi State 6-2
46t Miami (OH) 5-2
46t Vanderbilt 5-2
46t Arkansas 4-1
46t Toledo 4-1
46t Iowa State 6-3
51t Temple 4-2
51t Kansas 5-3
51t Kentucky 3-1
51t Texas-El Paso 6-4
51t Southern Methodist 8-6
51t Rice 9-7
51t Indiana 2-0
51t Texas A&M 2-0
59t Mississippi 4-3
59t Maryland 3-2
59t San Diego State 2-1
62t Miami (FL) 1-1
62t South Fla. 1-1
64t Northern Illinois 5-6
64t Brigham Young 3-4
64t Tulsa 3-4
64t Oregon State 1-2
64t Boston College 1-2
64t Virginia 0-1
64t Notre Dame 2-3
64t Central Florida 1-2
72t Wake Forest 1-3
72t Arizona State 0-2
72t Fresno State 2-4
72t Navy 1-3
72t Georgia Tech 3-5
77t Connecticut 1-4
77t Georgia 3-6
77t San Jose State 0-3
77t Western Michigan 0-3
77t Central Michigan 1-4
77t Pittsburgh 0-3
83t Colorado State 3-7
83t Washington 2-6
83t Minnesota 4-8
86t Purdue 1-6
86t Louisville 0-5
86t Kent State 0-5
86t Western Kentucky 0-5
86t North Carolina 2-7
91 Syracuse 1-7
92t Cincinnati 0-7
92t Memphis 4-11
92t Wyoming 0-7
92t Rutgers 1-8
92t Idaho 2-9
97t Ball State 0-8
97t Tulane 0-8
97t Louisiana Tech 0-8
97t Utah State 0-8
101t Washington State 0-9
101t North Texas 8-17
103 Buffalo 0-10
104t Akron 0-11
104t Nevada-Las Vegas 1-12
104t New Mexico State 0-11
107t Duke 0-12
107t Florida International 0-12
107t Florida Atlantic 7-19
110 Eastern Michigan 0-16
111 Middle Tennessee State 3-20
112t New Mexico 0-19
112t Alabama-Birmingham 6-25
114 Troy 5-27
115 Louisiana-Lafayette 2-25
116 Bowling Green State 2-33
117 Marshall 1-37
118 Ohio 0-39
119 Arkansas State 1-48
120 Louisiana-Monroe 0-49
Louisiana-Monroe lost to Arkanas State who lost to Louisiana-Lafayette who lost to Middle Tennessee State who lost to Minnesota who lost to Northern Illinois who lost to Iowa State who lost to Iowa who lost to Arizona. A mind-boggling 49 FBS teams can claim transitive superiority over ULM.
