Rewards standings before the bowl games and after them.

Commentary: The Rewards ranking system has only matched the top five teams in the polls on two occasions: 1970 and 1987. In 2004, the two human polls disagreed on who they thought were #4 and #5; Rewards agreed with both polls on the top 3, and with the AP poll that Utah was #4 and Texas #5, whereas the USA Today poll ranked them in the other order. As described in the Table Legend page referenced above, if the Rewards ranking is only off by 0.5 from the polls' average rank, this is deemed as "=", and so 2004 came very close to being exactly the same as the top 5 in the polls. The Rewards system ranked Arizona State as the team having the eleventh best season, and they were the only team ranked in the top 20 in the polls where there was significant disagreement with the Rewards ranking system. Arizona State did defeat Iowa, who ended up in the top 10 at 10-2, and two of ASU's losses were to #1 USC and to top 10 California, so perhaps their rating of 19th and 20th in the final polls could have been a little on the low side because of a loss to arch-rival Arizona on the last game of the regular season. (The "25th team" in the polls - Florida - was ranked about 10 spots lower by the Rewards system, and ended its season at 7-5 after a 27-10 loss to Miami(F) in the Peach bowl game, so 25th place could seem a little generous.)