The Ultimate Frisbee Community

The winner REALLY is... Not so fast. Of course you can scroll down and see the final results, but first a bit about the point methodology. For proof of concept, we are working with the open division only, so far. The others will follow as long as we can get the data. The next question that we wrestled with was how to account for the rapid increase in teams competing at the Sectionals during the last ten years. We ultimately decided to make a split between pre-1999 and post 1999 Nationals, giving higher weight to the more recent championship competitors. We chose this time-frame because it's when the UPA went from 12 to 16 regions. And while it might seem to some that getting a bid with 16 available slots would be easier than with 12, again, the number teams competing for those slots -- (over 500 in 2005), has mushroomed. The points were, therefore, allocated in the following manner:

1984-1998
regional winners - 1pt
semi-finalists - 3pts
runner-up - 4pts
winner - 6pts

1999-2006
regional winners - 2pt
semi-finalists - 4pts
runner-up - 5pts
winner - 7pts

This might make more sense when looking at the results. For example, shouldn't the University of Washington's appearance at the 2005 Nationals be worth more than Syracuse's lone appearance in 1984? We think so too.

The jump in points from 1 to 3 (or 2 to 4) to the semi-finalists rewards surviving pool play. The 1 point increase from semi-finalist to runner-up is indicative of the fact that it's a single game.

There were 69 teams represented in the list out of the 309 places at the Nationals since 1984 with only 19 of those receiving 10 or more total points in the span of 22 years. The list is indeed top heavy. Stanford has the distinction of more Nationals appearances than any other college team with 17, while UC Santa Barbara and Carleton both have 16. Wisconsin, Cornell and Kanas round out the top 6 with 14, 14 and 13 respectively.

Using the Mississippi River as a totally arbritrary divider between east and west, the east has more total points, 380 to 331. Quick quiz - where are Chabot College, Las Positas and Salisbury State located? If you said California, California and Maryland, you....have way too much time on your hands, but you'd also be correct. One more geography question. Is Carleton College located east or west of the Mississippi? We went with west, though it appears to be only by a few miles.

The Ivy League colleges were well represented with Harvard, Yale, Brown, Princeton, Cornell, Penn and Columbia all appearing at least once. After all, it is a thinking game.

There were 33 states represented in our list. Some of the unrepresented states include Hawaii, Kentucky, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Let's go, Wildcats, Lobos, Sooners -- run more sprints...

Only one team has ever won the Nat'l Championship in their first year, Stanford in 1984 (with an asterisk). Florida should get a mention here after winning last year with appearances last in 1985 and '89.

How about the teams that have won more than one Nat'l title? Yes, the first one is easy, UC Santa Barbara with six is a record that will stand for a very long time. What about Carleton? Nope. Colorado? Good guess. Only Stanford (2002, 1984) Brown (2000, 2005) and East Carolina (1994, 1995) can lay claim to that distinction.

Our one-hit-wonders list is equally impressive. Syracuse and Ohio University are tied with the longest streak between Nationals appearances, 23 years -- and counting. Other stars on the way-back list are St. Louis University, last heard from in 1988, the State University of New York (SUNY) twins of Albany and Binghamton, whose last appearances were 1993 and '94, respectively. Las Positas did their damage in the tourney also in 1994 while Florida State was last seen in 1996. And though Texas A&M's lone appearance in 2001 appears to be an anomaly, it's likely that we'll be seeing more of as Washington and Queens's Kingston who both appeared at Nationals for the first time in the last couple of years.

In reality, we have no right to poke fun at teams on this list (even Syracuse), as each team on it deserves our congratulations and respect. The 400+ teams are lost in the sea of sectional qualifiers year after year would kill for the right to be 'poked' at. It would be a vast undertaking on a different scale to include Sectional and Regional data in factoring strength of all-time programs and if the data was accessible, we would do it. We are aware that our methodology is flawed in many ways (but it's our study) because there are teams in certain regions that don't make it out of the regionals that are far superior to some of those that do make the trip (wildcards acknowledged).

Will 2007 provide the next new name on the roster, or will the traditional powerhouses continue to dominate? Will recent history dictate the winner, or will the hallowed traditions of teams past spur their teams on to Ultimate victory? Only time will tell, and it's not long now...