Who is the Team of the Decade?
by BMC237 on Dec 2, 2009 3:45 PM CST
14 comments
Ok so I did some "research" and came up with the following records for these seven teams. The question remains: Who is the team of the decade (2000-2009)?
Let it be noted that the records/bowls follow these stipulations:
1. Texas wins out, defeating Florida in the BCS Title game
2. All other teams win out, including OSU who defeats Oregon in Rose Bowl. I’m not necessarily predicting this, just giving each team the benefit of the doubt and saying they win their respective bowl games.
3. I did not include conference championship titles won (though I did include prospective win in respective win records)
4. If Florida wins out and beats Texas, it’s clear they are the team.
Texas: 111-18, 8-2 in bowls, 4-0 in BCS, 2 BCS titles
USC: 103-25, 7-2 in bowls, 6-1 in BCS, 1 BCS Title, 1 AP
Florida: 100-29, 4-6 in bowls, 3-2 in BCS, 2 BCS Titles
LSU: 100-30, 8-2 in bowls, 3-0 in BCS, 2 BCS Titles
OU: 110-24, 5-5 in bowls, 2-5 in BCS 1 BCS Title
OSU: 102-26, 5-5 in bowls, 4-3 in BCS, 1 BCS Title
Miami: 93-32, 6-3 bowl, 3-1 BCS, 1 BCS Title
So what team do you think? I think it boils down to Texas, USC, Florida and LSU.
Texas has lead in decade wins, ties lead in bowl wins, ties lead in BCS Titles won and ties lead in BCS win %
(remember this is if Texas wins out)
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Texas will be if...
we win this Saturday and then win the MNC.
2 undefeated seasons, 2 1-loss seasons, 4-0 BCS bowls, 2 NCs.
Any wait to conference championships?
We should get penalized for a lack of those.
But I still think Texas is it if we win it all.
"Football's so important in Texas. On the West Coast, it's a social. On the East Coast, it's a culture. Here, it's a religion."
-- Major Applewhite
Great analysis.
But as TXinDC said, this has been debated quite well before.
"Football's so important in Texas. On the West Coast, it's a social. On the East Coast, it's a culture. Here, it's a religion."
-- Major Applewhite
Slight correction.
USC: 103-25, 7-2 in bowls, 6-1 in BCS, 1 BCS Title, 2 AP
But not really...
I think the sense is more or less correct. Your change suggests they have 3 titles when they only have 1.5. I guess the more accurate way of showing it would be to just list ‘national titles’ and give USC and LSU a half title, but I think outside of the USC fanbase (and anti-LSU people) most people give LSU’s BCS title a bit more weight than USC’s AP title.
I actually give them completely equal weight
Anyone who believes that Texas, or any other school in the country, would only claim “half” a championship in similar circumstances is slightly naive.
If you give USC only “half” a championship for only winning the AP title but not the coaches, do you also credit Michigan with only half a championship in 1997? Or Miami in 1991? Or Colorado in 1990?
Should Texas only claim half a 1970 championship since we were #1 in the UPI but not in the AP?
College football is just weird in that two teams can claim championships from the same season. It’s happened many times over the year. And the implementation of the BCS — which is not a playoff but a methodology designed to maximize, but not guarantee, the possibility of a consensus #1 at the end of the season — doesn’t change that.
Naive? Nah!
No team starts the season with the goal of winning the writer’s poll title. They know they play in a system that has a different set of criteria to strive for: get to the BCS Championship game and win there. If a team doesn’t do that and backs into a title that some wretches who ride desk s think they get, we’ll, that’s only a partial recognition. And to assert that a team that does precisely what the goals that all 120 teams begin the season hoping for – BCS Championship – has only an equal claim to a season’s title with another squad that didn’t go through all the hoops and follow all the rules? Really? That diminishes their accomplishment.
When UPI and AP polls differed that was one thing, there was no common criteria for all 120 (or however many squads were Div. 1 then) to follow. Apples and Oranges.
USC was gifted at most a half a title for 2003, whereas LSU earned a whole one. Yes, technically that makes it 1.5 titles for the season, but who’s counting?
USC was #1 in both polls at the end of the regular season
To say that USC was “gifted” a championship, and that they “backed into a title,” is disingenuous. How exactly did USC not follow the rules?
USC was screwed by the BCS in 2003. Period. They were #1 in both the coaches and the AP poll at the end of the regular season. They followed that up with a convincing bowl victory over the then-#4 team in the country to retain the position in the AP they already had. The champion of the AP has been regarded as a “champion” ever since the 1930s, and the invention of the BCS did not change that. Participation in the BCS bowl system did not require schools to forfeit the right to call themselves, legitimately, “national champions” if the AP differed from the BCS final poll.
Texas was potentially facing a situation last fall in which the Horns would have been AP, but not BCS, champs — had they had the ability to play, and beat convincingly, USC in the Fiesta Bowl. (USC had the same opportunity with a convincing opportunity over us. But, alas, we were both stuck playing Big 10 teams.) Do you think any Longhorn fan would have argued that we would have earned “only” a half championship had the AP corrected the garbage created by the BCS?
PS - If any team was ever gifted a championship . . .
. . . it was the 1997 Nebraska team. Michigan was #1 in both polls going into the bowls, but Osborne announced his retirement just before the Orange Bowl. His fellow coaches gave him the gift of a national championship by elevating the Huskers to #1 after the bowls even though Michigan also won its bowl game.
(I actually think Nebraska was the better of the two teams. But there was no reason to switch votes to elevate Nebraska to #1 after the bowls if a voter hadn’t already been convinced by comparing the Michigan and Nebraska regular seasons.)
I hear you...
But technically they have more than the 1 AP they got credit for above. I agree with the 1.5 as a better way to state it.
Biggest Stat Not Mentioned
Not mentioned in this thread, but in my prior one on the same topic, it should be noted that if UT beats Florida (BEAT NU FIRST!!!) then they’ll be the only program of all the ones in this ToD conversation that actually defeated EVERY one of the other elite programs in the Oughts (Miami can’t seriously be in this mix).
And that stat will include wins over both USC and UF in title games, as well as a wins over LSU and tOSU in bowl games. That means the wins were on big stages, even more impressive.
Yes, it’s been discussed several times here. But if both UT and UF win on Saturday look forward to a larger national discussion on the same subject in the month-long run up to Pasadena. Guaranty that ESPN, FOX, et.al. will go ad nauseum on the subject. Good to be armed with stats and info to drill it home with Longhorn doubters.
Beat NU!!!
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