Broaden your focus for a moment, past the nitty-gritty details of the schedules and two-deeps and likely storylines for the 2013 college football season, and ask yourself this: Which programs are most likely to be successful, not just this year, but over the next three?
CATEGORIES (weighting)
COACHING (27.5 percent): Quality of coaching staff, with heavy emphasis on the head coach, taking into account potential coaching changes in future
CURRENT TALENT (27.5 percent): Quality of players currently in the program, focusing on the future
RECRUITING (15 percent): Projected quality of 2014 and 2015 recruiting classes, and recruiting momentum
TITLE PATH (10 percent): Ability for teams to compete for league and national titles, based on opponent strength and quality of conference
PROGRAM POWER (20 percent): Accounts for fan and institutional support, facilities, resources and history, in addition to intangible factors
For a full breakdown of the College Football Future Power Rankings methodology, click here.
That's exactly what we asked our panel of experts, and below we offer you the fruits of their labor: A top-25 ranking of the teams most likely to compete for and win championships over the next three seasons. Or, as we like to call it, the College Football Future Power Rankings.
Will resurgent programs like Notre Dame, Texas A&M and UCLA continue to climb the national title pecking order? Will struggling powers like Oklahoma, Texas and USC be able to stop their respective declines? And does anyone have a chance of taking over Alabama's throne as the top program in college football?
Our panel of experts -- Travis Haney, Brock Huard, Tom Luginbill, Todd McShay and Mark Schlabach -- found answers to these questions by rating programs in five different categories (Coaching, Current Talent, Recruiting, Title Path and Program Power) to generate an overall score. (For more information on how these rankings were put together, click here.) They then weighed in with their analysis on each team.
Here you have it: The top 25 college football programs for the next three seasons.
