--- title: College Football Academic Top 25 Rankings: Clemson, Stanford description: Here's how college football's Top 25 stacks up in the classroom canonical: https://time.com/4606863/college-football-top-25-2016-ranked-by-academics/ author: Sean Gregory article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-21T18:21:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-30T12:18:43.592Z article:section: Sports og:title: College Football Academic Top 25 Rankings: Clemson, Stanford og:description: Here's how college football's Top 25 stacks up in the classroom og:url: https://time.com/4606863/college-football-top-25-2016-ranked-by-academics/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b764835cad3c4df/6988b3b3f887dc7800e988dd/stanford_football.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Members of the Stanford Cardinal celebrate after the game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Notre Dame Stadium on Oct. 15, 2016 in South Bend, Indiana. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: College Football Academic Top 25 Rankings: Clemson, Stanford twitter:description: Here's how college football's Top 25 stacks up in the classroom twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b764835cad3c4df/6988b3b3f887dc7800e988dd/stanford_football.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # College Football Top 25, Ranked by Academics (21 Dec 2016) by [Sean Gregory](https://time.com/author/sean-gregory/) and [David Johnson](https://time.com/author/dave-johnson/) Dec 21, 2016 6:21 PM UTC  Members of the Stanford Cardinal celebrate after the game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Notre Dame Stadium on Oct. 15, 2016 in South Bend, Indiana. Members of the Stanford Cardinal celebrate after the game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Notre Dame Stadium on Oct. 15, 2016 in South Bend, Indiana.Michael Hickey—Getty Images by [Sean Gregory](https://time.com/author/sean-gregory/) and [David Johnson](https://time.com/author/dave-johnson/) Dec 21, 2016 6:21 PM UTC The 2016 football season was something of a disappointment for Stanford: a 9-3 record wasn’t enough for a shot at the [national championship](http://www.collegefootballplayoff.com/), leaving the Cardinal to [settle](http://www.stanforddaily.com/2016/12/19/mccaffrey-to-sit-out-sun-bowl/) for the Hyundai Sun Bowl against North Carolina. But Stanford fans can take some solace in winning a different title: the best performing team in the classroom. According to an [annual academic ranking](http://time.com/4147924/college-football-top-25-ranked-by-academics/) of the top 25 football teams from the Washington think tank [New America](https://www.newamerica.org/), Stanford is at the head of the class. The University of Alabama, the top team on the field and the favorite to win the national championship, came in seventh. The full results, published first at TIME, are below. Click the left tab for the academic rankings, the right one for the football order: As it has done for the last [two](http://time.com/4147924/college-football-top-25-ranked-by-academics/) [years](http://time.com/3640357/college-football-top-25-academic/), New America compiled the rankings by beginning with each school’s football graduation success rate (GSR). The GSR is a NCAA measure that, unlike the federal graduation rate, doesn’t penalize schools for having players who transfer or leave for the pros–as long as those players depart in good academic standing. The higher the school’s graduation success rate, the higher they start out in New America’s rankings. Schools lose points for graduating football players at different rates than their overall male student body. To compare players to students, New America relied on federal rates, since there’s no GSR for the general population. (The service academies do not provide a federal rate, which means Navy, No. 25 in football, is excluded from the ranking.) The bigger the discrepancy, the harsher the penalty. Even if a school graduated football players at a higher rate than the overall male student population—and five schools in the top 25, Stanford, Clemson, Louisville, Temple, and Western Michigan, did—the difference was counted as a penalty. New America does not want to reward schools with low overall graduation rates. Schools were awarded an added bonus for having high overall rates. Stanford topped the rankings thanks to its 99% GSR for football players. But [once again](http://time.com/4147924/college-football-top-25-ranked-by-academics/), few did better overall than Clemson. The Tigers, no. 2 in football, are also runner-up in the classroom. Clemson faces Ohio State (21 in academics, 3 in football) in one Dec. 31 playoff semifinal; Alabama (7, 1) plays Washington (16, 4) in the other. Clemson graduated football players at nearly the same rate (79% vs. 78%) as the rest of the school’s male student body. Alabama may survive the college football playoff, and win its 5th national title come Jan. 9th. But Clemson deserves credit for its consistently strong showing on both fronts. The Stanford faithful, meanwhile, should find another reason to cheer––no matter what happens in the Sun Bowl. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4606863/college-football-top-25-2016-ranked-by-academics/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4606863/college-football-top-25-2016-ranked-by-academics/"},"headline":"College Football Top 25, Ranked by Academics (21 Dec 2016)","datePublished":"2016-12-21T18:21:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-30T12:18:43.592Z","description":"And the winner is ...","url":"https://time.com/4606863/college-football-top-25-2016-ranked-by-academics/","keywords":["College football","alabama","Stanford"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b764835cad3c4df/6988b3b3f887dc7800e988dd/stanford_football.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sean Gregory","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/sean-gregory/"},{"@type":"Person","name":"David Johnson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/dave-johnson/"}],"articleSection":"Sports","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2b764835cad3c4df/6988b3b3f887dc7800e988dd/stanford_football.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Members of the Stanford Cardinal celebrate after the game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Notre Dame Stadium on Oct. 15, 2016 in South Bend, Indiana.","caption":"Members of the Stanford Cardinal celebrate after the game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Notre Dame Stadium on Oct. 15, 2016 in South Bend, Indiana.","creditText":"Michael Hickey—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/sports/","name":"Sports"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/college-football/","name":"College football"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4606863/college-football-top-25-2016-ranked-by-academics/","name":"College Football Top 25, Ranked by Academics (21 Dec 2016)"}}]}] ```