Five teams have been ranked in every single poll issued by the college football playoff committee. Name these members of (current) college football royalty. Recall that this is only the third year of the committee. Two royal members are obvious, two more will surprise few. The fifth is tough. But that’s just here and now. What about long-term college football royalty? Which five teams have won the most games all time? The answers are below.
Depending on the source, there are 193 countries in the world — at least that’s how many member states belong to the United Nations. Three others have certain attributes of nation-states: the Holy See (not Vatican City), Palestine, and Taiwan. Let’s go with 193, it’s (not) a nice round number. Again, depending on the source, 44 countries have a monarch, 16 of which are subjects of the British monarchy. That means that 22.8% of the countries in the world have a monarch. Who knew?
Only a few of the monarchs exercise complete control, including those of Brunei, Swaziland, Saudi Arabia, Vatican City, and Oman. A few others have predominate control, such as those of Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bhutan. Most are in the British mold – constitutional monarchies, where the monarch has a limited role. Even so, some have considerable power. For instance, though the King of Jordan isn’t the head of government, he can veto laws.
Some kings are incredibly rich. The King of Thailand is worth $30 billion. Although many Thai citizens have sought to delegitimize the king, the junta that controls the Thai government recently increased spending to uphold and preserve the monarchy to over $500 million a year.
The Sultan of Brunei is worth $20 billion. He has been the absolute ruler of his country since it gained independence from the British in 1984. The Brits have a thing for monarchs, they love their own and they have an obsession with putting others in place. The Sultan is but latest in a series.
The king of Saudi Arabia is worth $18 billion and is another creature of the Brits. The Saud family has deeper royal roots, but they date their modern claim to the crown only to the post-WWI era. At that time, most of the land that comprises modern Saudi Arabia was a British protectorate. The king isn’t even the richest member of the Saudi royal family, which is 15,000 strong. One of the princes has invested well and is worth around $30 billion.
There are many ways to think about monarchs – power and wealth, but also length of rule. The royal dynasty in Thailand has reigned since 1782. The royal dynasty in Bahrain has reigned since 1793. The two of them effectively sandwich the ratification of our constitution.
In declaring our independence, we had a few unkind things to say about the British king. Not surprisingly, we didn’t embrace the concept of kingship, though George Washington was offered a crown. Thankfully, he declined. To protect us from ourselves (something we are not always good at), our imperfect founding fathers decided to take nobility and royalty and kings off the table. They were so concerned about the issue that they addressed it twice in the Constitution of the United States.
Article 1, Section 9, states that “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States.”
Article 1, Section 10, states that “No State shall * * * grant any Title of Nobility.”
Without these clauses, the Adams family (two presidents), the Rockefeller family (massive wealth, though relatively less now, a VP candidate, a senator), the Roosevelt family (two presidents), the Kennedy family (a president, some senators, and others), the Bush family (a senator and two presidents, among others) and many others would likely have been granted noble titles. The members of these families have enjoyed many of the perquisites of nobility – wealth, fame, power – but they have had (at some level) to earn it, not had it conferred by birth. The prescience of our founding fathers was strong in this arena.
Our college football royalty also has to earn it. The long-time powers certainly have advantages over the football equivalent of nouveau riche, but they have to produce year after year. Nobody gives them wins just because they won a lot of games in the 1960s, unlike, say, the Kennedys who seem to win elections based on their success in the 1960s.
Answers:
Five teams have been in every college football playoff committee ranking, in no particular order: Alabama & Ohio State (obvious), Clemson & Florida State (same conference, but still, not surprising), and Utah (tough).
Michigan (934), Yale (890), Nebraska (889), Ohio State (888), and Texas (879) have the most football wins in NCAA history. If Nebraska wins its bowl game and Ohio State wins the national championship, there will be a three-way tie for second place. Michigan’s spot on top seems secure for several (likely many) years.
Bob, thanks for sharing.