Top 25 Ranked Defense (2008 - 2019)

Scott Cunningham asked on Twitter:

Do football fans ever create rankings of “best teams” across seasons? If so, where does this years LSU fit in the distribution of best teams? Is Alabama at its best iow going to win or lose last night?

— scott cunningham (@causalinf) January 14, 2020

So I thought I would tackle part of the question - where does LSU fit in the distribution of teams across seasons.  I am using the Complex Invasion College Football Production Model, using aggregate data provided from www.cfbstats.com.  If you are interested, here are the details of the Complex Invasion College Football production model (except since I am estimating all the seasons since 2008 - I used a panel data regression with clustered standard errors by conference).

Tomorrow, I will give an answer to Prof. Cunningham's question about "best teams" since 2008.

Below is the results for the Top 25 NCAA FBS best (most productive) Defense's since 2008.  For those interested, LSU in 2019 was ranked #610 out of 1503.

Rank	Season		Name
1	2011		Alabama
2	2011		LSU
3	2013		Louisville
4	2018		Mississippi State
5	2009		Alabama
6	2008		USC
7	2009		Florida
8	2017		Alabama
9	2009		Ohio State
10	2009		Nebraska
11	2008		TCU
12	2010		Ohio State
13	2016		Michigan
14	2008		Tennessee
15	2010		Boise State
16	2013		Michigan State
17	2009		Air Force
18	2008		Florida
19	2009		Penn State
20	2016		Alabama
21	2010		TCU
22	2016		Ohio State
23	2012		Alabama
24	2012		Florida
25	2011		South Carolina