For reference, the ranking used by the author is from US News & World Report[1]. While it's far from objective, it certainly holds enough merit such that UC Davis being the last school you would attend for CS sounds ridiculous.
Bachelor level students do not conduct research... so it seems odd to rank schools for their Bachelor CS degree program based off of stats about their Graduate CS programs. (this thread is about beginner programming courses, ie. undergrad students). -- as a footnote, at least at my school, the graduate level professors are not the same ones teaching undergrad classes.
Grad school rankings tell you how strong the professors are. Both professors and lecturers teach courses. The strength of the department also tells you the quality of the lecturers it's able to hire.
[1]: http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-gradu...