The 1957 college football rankings were an effort to rank the American football teams participating in the 1957 college football season.
College football's governing body, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), did not issue rankings or conduct a championship game or playoffs to determine a national champion.
The most widely-reported rankings were published by two of the major news agencies based on weekly polling conducted during the season and at the end of the regular season.
At the end of the regular season, Auburn was ranked No.
1 in the AP poll, and Ohio State was ranked No.
Auburn did not play in a bowl game; Ohio State won the 1958 Rose Bowl.
Neither agency conducted polling after the bowl games.
Additional rankings were published at the end of the season by the International News Service (INS), Football Writers Association of America (FWAA), and Litkenhous, each of which ranked Ohio State at No.
The final AP poll was released on December 2, at the end of the regular season, weeks before the major bowls.
The AP did not conduct poll after the bowl season regularly until 1968.
The final UP poll was released prior to the bowl games on December 2.
[13] Ohio State received 14 of the 35 first-place votes; Auburn received eleven, Michigan State eight, and two to Arizona State.
[13] In January 1958, the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) published its ranking of the top teams.
The rankings were based on voting by a five-man committee consisting of Bert McGrane of the Des Moines Register & Tribune; Bill Rives of the Dallas News; Bill Leiser of the San Francisco Chronicle; Fred Russell of the Nashville Banner; and I.R.
The top-ranked team in the FWAA rankings received the Grantland Rice Award.
[14] The top teams determined by the FWAA were: 1.
Auburn - 5 points (three-way tie, each with one first-place vote) 2.
Navy - 5 points (three-way tie, each with one first-place vote) 2.
Michigan State - 5 points (three-way tie, each with one first-place vote) 5.
Ole Miss - 2 points 7.
Iowa - 1 point [14] The final 1957 INS rankings were released at the beginning of December.
The rankings were determined by the votes of a "panel of experts" consisting of former coaches Bernie Bierman and Andy Kerr, sportswriter Francis J.
Powers, INS columnist Bob Considine, and INS sports editor John Barrington.
[15] The INS panel selected the following as their top ten teams: 1.
Ole Miss, 20 points 7.
Notre Dame, 4 points An early mathematical ranking system was developed by Vanderbilt University professor Edward Litkenhous.
[16][17][18] Whereas other rankigns were limited to the top 10 or 20 teams, Litkenhous ranked over 550 college football teams.
The final Litkenhous rankings were issued in early December 1957, and his complete rankings from 1 to 170 are set forth below.
San Francisco Austin - 67.1 112.
UC Santa Barbara (6–2) - 59.3 148.