College football rankings fun
Our friends at ESPN.com decided to pass the final days before the start of football practice with a little ranking.
They asked 15 of their college football experts to rank all 119 Division-I programs for what they’ve done in the past decade. An interesting idea. An even more interesting result.
The top vote-getter is no surprise. Southern Cal has been the best program over the past decade with two national titles added to its trophy cases.
No. 2 is as it should be, too. Ohio State falls in right behind USC.
Then comes No. 3, and the disagreement begins.
Texas is ranked as the No. 3 program of the past decade. Heck, one, um, expert ranked the Longhorns No. 1 on his ballot. Listen, I think the Horns have been one of the top 10 programs of the past decade. But the third-best?
They couldn’t even beat Oklahoma for half of the past decade.
The Sooners, by the way, come in at No. 5 on the ESPN rankings.
And frankly, I think that’s about where the Sooners should be. They played for three national titles, winning one. They claimed five conference titles, and considering they weren’t even in those type of discussions until 2000, they’ve won five conference crowns in the past seven seasons.
Not bad.
And better than Texas over the past decade.
In my estimation, Florida (No. 4) and Florida State (No. 7) should rank third and fourth. The SEC is the best football conference in the country, and the Gators have been the leaders of the pack. And even though the Seminoles have dropped off a bit of late, they still have a national title and seven conference titles in the past decade. Remember, too, Florida State was almost untouchable in the late 90s, which are included in this ranking.
So I’d leave OU at No. 5 and move Texas to No. 6.
Until the Longhorns can win a league title without the help of a quarterback named Vince, they don’t belong in the top five.
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Comments
Nice article. One minor glitch, though. OU has “only” won four conference titles in the past decade–2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.
The Sooners should not be ranked above Texas. Sure, they have won 5 in a row, however, they have not played many of the National power house teams. When they do play against these teams they do not do well (a good example of this is the Orange Bowl in 2004 against USC). Also, Oklahoma got beat last year by a team (Boise State) that a couple of years prior no one had heard of. I think that all of the hype around the Sooners in Oklahoma is highly over-rated and the coaching staff is always willing to blame the downfalls of the team on anything but the actual issues (the game again Oregon is a good example). I do think that the Sooners should be in the top ten for the success they have had the past few years, especially in the defense.
I bet your laughing all the way to the bank over the recent OSU QB dispute. All the way to the bank. You know, as someone who is studying journalism at a school in the Midwest and away from Oklahoma, we’re taught an ethic you never seemed to learn. Profit off a kid? His mom feeding him? You don’t know the first thing as to what it’s like being a college football player.
You’re laughing all the way to the bank on this one as my journalism professor put it, but as he said:
“There is a special spot in journalism hell for people who get ahead in this profession off the pain of others.”
Good luck.
Overrated State and number 2? The Big Ten always likes to bang their own drum, because not many others will bang it for them. Ring their bells, certainly, in most bowl games of import. OSU or Michigan, all those fatigued parts are interchangeable – might be 10th on this list. At best. That is, if they never have to play Boise State.