Wins and losses is the ultimate measure of a team’s success, but in the College Football Playoff era, and even before that, in a sport in which the entire regular season schedule consists of just a dozen games, it also matters who you play, who those teams play and how well they do, as well as where you play.
Great teams and their coaches know that to be considered the best, you have to be willing to play and beat the best. With conference structures and schedules the way the are today, teams only play three or four games every year against teams outside of their conference.