Which College Football Teams are Essential?

On the Retro Bowl subreddit, someone asked: Which are the most essential 32 college football teams? They wanted to turn their NFL game into a College game by customizing the NFL rosters. Everyone told him to just get the College Retro Bowl version, but he didn't want that. It was insane, but it did get me thinking. If you had to narrow it down to roughly 32, which are the most essential teams? And what is the real number of high-quality teams? 25? 40?

Let's figure it out. 

I'm starting with the SEC, the most essential conference. 

5 leap off the page:

Alabama

Auburn

LSU

Florida

Georgia

There are other good names but we can't take everybody. Let's move on for now.

Let's shift gears and look and the list of champions and start plucking names:

Clemson

Ohio State

Florida State

Notre Dame

Texas

Oklahoma

USC

UCLA

Miami

Tennessee

Nebraska

Penn State

Michigan

Washington

Colorado

That covers most schools claiming a championship in the last 50 years. Exceptions like SMU which I don't think most people would say are essential. 

Let's take a look at current rankings. 

Oregon

Really the only notable team that I didn't already mention in the current rankings. Wild. 

Going through the list of biggest rivalries, the only one I'm really missing is Army-Navy. Since we have the room, let's add them. 

Army 

Navy

We also have room for these two:

Cal

Stanford

We're up to 25. 

Let's do a quick check by conference. 

Wisconsin has been pretty big for a while. Michigan State too I guess. Iowa is a maybe.

Texas A&M is a decent name. Baylor's a good one. Texas Tech for Mahomes. 

At this level there's a lot of maybes. You could argue Illinois for Red Grange and Dick Butkus. 

You could argue Pitt and West Virginia for the rivalry. Same for BYU and Utah. Or adding Oregon State for the Oregon rivalry. Same for Oklahoma State. South Carolina, Georgia Tech.

Here's how I have to approach it. If a neutral fan was buying a mobile game, hoping to replicate the best college football experience, which ones would I be disappointed to be excluded?

Of the maybes, I think Baylor, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Texas A&M, probably make the cut. So that's 30 essential teams. 

After that you could throw in Pitt, West Virginia and Iowa I guess, but it's really more fan/region-specific. 

Really, if you had the top 21 on the list before I added Army-Navy, you'd be doing pretty good.