BUAFL Academic Rankings

Below the two rankings side by side can be seen. The top 25 football rankings as decided by a panel of 12 coaches, players and journalists on the left and the top 25 if we ranked by academic prowess (stats from the complete university guide)

1.       Birmingham Lions (5-0) 2.       Hertfordshire Hurricanes (5-0) 3.       Loughborough (4-0) 4.       Southampton Stags (5-0) 5.       Stirling Clansmen (4-0) 6.       Derby Braves (5-0) 7.       Hull Sharks (4-0) 8.       Sheffield Sabres (4-0) 9.       Bath Killer Bees (4-0) 10.   UWE Bullets (4-1) 11.   UEA Pirates (4-0) 12.   Portsmouth Destroyers (3-0) 13.   Kent Falcons (4-0) 14.   Plymouth Blitz (3-1) 15.   Kingston Cougars (4-1) 16.   NTU Renegades (3-1) 17.   Leeds Carnegie (3-1) 18.   Solent Redhawks (3-2) 19.   Brighton Tsunami (3-0) 20.   Glasgow Tigers (3-1) 21.   UCLan Rams  (2-0) 22.   Warwick Wolves (2-1) 23.   Bradford Bears (3-2) 24.   Hallam Warriors (1-1) 25.   Northampton Nemesis (2-2) 87 - 14

1.       Cambridge (2-1) 2.       Oxford (0-3) 3.       Imperial College London (2-2) 4.       Durham (1-1) 5.       St. Andrews (N/A) 6.       #22 - Warwick (2-1) 7.       Lancaster (0-4) 8.       #9 - Bath (4-0) 9.       Bristol (2-1) 10.   York (1-2) 11.   Exeter (1-2) 12.   #3 - Loughborough (4-0) 13.   #4 – Southampton (5-0) 14.   Edinburgh (1-3) 15.   #20 - Glasgow (3-1) 16.   King's College London (1-3) 17.   Nottingham (1-3) 18.   Leicester (1-4) 19.   Surrey (0-4) 20.   #1 - Birmingham (5-0) 21.   Newcastle (1-3) 22.   Royal Holloway (0-4) 23.   #11 - UEA (4-0) 24.   #8 - Sheffield (4-0) 25.   Manchester (3-2) 48 – 44

The combined records of the top ranked footballing teams come in at an impressive 87-14 giving them an  winning average of 86%. When teams are ranked by their academic endeavor the story is a little more dire, with the more cerebral brothers clocking in with 52%. While we do not see a DC ranked team in the academic rankings until #7 we also see three of the top four in the top 25 academic teams (well done Birmingham, Loughborough and Southampton).

Two of the top three academic teams have programs that are no older than 2 years, with Cambridge the only one boasting a winning record currently.

Next we take a look at the bottom dwellers of both the football and academic worlds

10. Royal Holloway Bears (0-4) 9. Lancaster Bombers (0-4) 8. Edinburgh Napier Knights (0-3) 7. Wolverhampton Wildcats (0-1) 6. Teesside Cougars (0-4) 5. Oxford Lancers (0-3) 4. Bath Spa Bulldogs (0-4) 3. Surrey Stingers (0-4) 2. Worcester Royals (0-3) 1. DMU Falcons (0-4) 0-34

10.  Leeds Metropolitan (3-1) 9.  Teesside (0-4) 8.  #6 - Derby (5-0) 7.  #25 - Northampton (2-2) 6.  Greenwich (1-2) 5. Anglia Ruskin (1-2) 4. Worcester (0-3) 3. Staffordshire (1-2) 2. London South Bank (0-3) 1. #18 - Southampton Solent (3-2) 14-18

The bottom ranked academic universities with American football teams are shown, however it is important to note that you have to go down to 95 of 116 places on the academic table to find the 10^th lowest team with an American football team. This shows that perhaps that is some correlation between low performance and sport funding, with so many lowly ranked universities without a team.

Unsurprisingly the bottom 10 football teams have a combined win ratio of .0. While the bottom 10 academic have a .43 record.  It seems that low academic performance does not necessarily mean low football performance, with only a slight difference between the top 25 academic teams and bottom 10.