The final Dominance Ranking (national rank in scoring offense + scoring defense) for 2010; bold indicates a conference's pre-season favorite.
| 1 | Boise St. |
| 2 | TCU |
| 3 | Oregon |
| 4 | Ohio St. |
| 5 | Stanford |
| 6 | Alabama |
| 7 | Northern Ill. |
| 8 | Wisconsin |
| 9 | Nevada |
| 9 | UCF |
| 11 | Oklahoma |
| 11 | Utah |
| 11 | Virginia Tech |
| 14 | Nebraska |
| 15 | Missouri |
| 16 | Florida St. |
| 17 | San Diego St. |
| 18 | LSU |
| 19 | Iowa |
| 20 | Auburn |
| 21 | North Carolina St. |
| 22 | Arkansas |
| 22 | Oklahoma St. |
| 24 | Georgia |
| 25 | Maryland |
| 26 | Air Force |
| 26 | Hawaii |
| 26 | Texas A&M |
| 29 | Mississippi St. |
| 30 | Florida |
| 31 | Illinois |
| 32 | Western Mich. |
| 33 | Louisville |
| 33 | South Carolina |
| 33 | West Virginia |
| 36 | Pittsburgh |
Why to 36? Because that's how far one must look down the list before encountering the Big East pre-season favorite. Could one explain more succinctly why Dave Wannsted is no longer a head coach? Not that Coach Wanndsted performed particularly worse than his peers: the top ranked Big East teams tied at 33rd with South Carolina, exactly one ranking ahead of the Panthers.
Two conference pre-season favorites (C-USA's Houston, and SunBelt's Middle Tennessee State) were too far down the list even for this post, at 55th and 68th, respectively.
Boise got the last laugh here, having spent much of the season atop the rankings. It's not much consolation, but the finish boosts the Broncos into the top spot in the cumulative rankings since 2001 (about which, more in the next post).
Notable: San Diego State, Maryland, and Hawaii improved the most over 2009, rocketing 87, 84, and 73 places, respectively, in the rankings. Central Michigan (last year's darling of the rankings), Texas, Ole Miss, and Rutgers were the wilting lillies of the 2010 rankings, falling 74, 73, 69, and 66 places, respectively.