Jeff Brohm

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Georgia and Alabama will play in the final game of the 2021 college football season next Monday night in Indianapolis.

Nothing the Bulldogs or Crimson Tide do in Lucas Oil Stadium that evening will affect the two lists I’m about to share about the results of this season.

RiverLink tolls should benefit from increased traffic as thousands of fans trek north on Interstate 65. Ditto for hotels, restaurants and other outlets in the area.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has already noticed that some fans have pushed back against price gouging in the 317 area code by finding more reasonably-priced places to stay in the Louisville area.

Welcome.

Now, back to football. Kentucky’s rally to defeat Iowa on Saturday in the Citrus Bowl pushed this question to the front of my mind:

Where did the Wildcats rank among most improved teams in the Power 5 conferences?

Comparing the 2021 and 2020 seasons was a tricky thing. Few teams played the same number of games in each season.

In 2020, conference play was the only thing most programs attempted. In 2021, teams returned to the business of padding their records with visits from New Mexico State, Eastern Kentucky and Idaho.

Simple increases in win totals are a clumsy comparison in 2021.

Michigan won 10 more games than last season, but Jim Harbaugh’s team also played eight more games. Baylor also was plus-10 in the win column, but the Bears only played five more times.

For this season, a better comparison will be which programs delivered the largest jumps in winning percentage.

On the flip side, which programs suffered the largest tumbles in winning percentage? That was a question I considered necessary because of the jarring regression that transpired in Bloomington, Indiana.

At Kentucky, the Wildcats’ winning percentage improved from .455 (5-6 last season) to .769 (10-3). That did not make the top 5. It did make the top 10, one spot ahead of Washington State.

Here are the Five Most Improved Power 5 programs by winning percentage:

1. Baylor: from .222 (2-7) to .857 (12-2). Something magical is happening in Waco, Texas. The Bears have a national title in men’s basketball, and now, Dave Aranda has given Baylor the top football program in the Big 12.

2. Michigan State: from .286 (2-5) to .846 (11-2). Check Mel Tucker’s new and improved W2s. They will reflect what the Spartans’ administration thinks about the job he did.

3. Michigan: from .333 (2-4) to .857 (12-2). The one-sided loss to Georgia still stings in Ann Arbor, but the Wolverines settled several scores, including one against a program they had not beaten in a long, long time.

4. Arkansas: from .300 (3-7) to .692 (9-4). Beat Texas. Beat LSU. Beat Penn State. That’s quite a season for the Razorbacks and coach Sam Pittman.

5. Purdue: from .333 (2-4) to .692 (9-4). Boilermakers’ coach Jeff Brohm started the 2021 season on more than one hot seat list. You won’t see Brohm there next September.

Now the Five Biggest Slides in Power 5:

5. Stanford: from .666 (4-2) to .250 (3-9). The sagging Cardinal will lug a seven-game losing streak into the 2022 season. Folks are wondering if David Shaw has lost his mojo.

4. Washington: from .750 (3-1) to .333 (4-8). The Huskies started their season with a loss to FCS program Montana — and never improved from there.

3. Southern Cal: from .833 (5-1) to .333 (4-8). There are $110 million reasons to believe that coach Lincoln Riley will have the Trojans on the most improved list a year from now.

2. Northwestern: from .778 (7-2) to .250 (3-9). In 2020, the Wildcats played Ohio State in the Big Ten title game and then beat Auburn in a bowl game. In 2021, they lost to Duke and Illinois.

1. Indiana: from .750 (6-2) to .167 (2-10). The Hoosiers carried the momentum from their improbable 2020 season to a No. 17 ranking in the Associated Press preseason poll. In 2021, they beat Idaho, Western Kentucky and not one team in the Big Ten.

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