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The Associated Press released their Top 100 football programs in the 80 years that they’ve been ranking said programs. The California Golden Bears came in at #45, which is somewhat mediocre. Here’s the methodology used to assemble the rankings:
To determine the all-time Top 25, the AP formula counted poll appearances (one point) to mark consistency, No. 1 rankings (two points) to acknowledge elite programs and gave a bonus for AP championships (10 points).
The Golden Bears earned 199 of these points, compared to 1,112 by the #1 team (who doesn’t need to be named here because Go Bears, duh). Garnering less than 18% of their points feels even more underwhelming than that 45th ranking.
Here’s the Pac-12 breakdown:
| Nat’l rank | P12 rank | School | Points |
| 5 | 1 | USC | 974 |
| 17 | 2 | UC L.A. | 535 |
| 20 | 3 | Wash | 430 |
| 27 | 4 | Colorado | 316 |
| 28 | 5 | Oregon | 293 |
| 30 | 6 | ASU | 284 |
| 32 | 7 | Stanfurd | 272 |
| 45 | 8 | Cal | 199 |
| 54 | 9 | Arizona | 168 |
| 59 | 10 | WSU | 129 |
| 64 | 11 | Utah | 100 |
| 65 | 12 | OSU | 95 |
The bad news gets worse with Cal ranking in the lower half of the conference…
Unfortunately, the AP started ranking teams a full decade after The Wonder Teams of Andy Smith (and four of our five national championships) or Cal would have been likely been ranked a tad higher.