Going to the pro bowl is not the only measure of success. How many of our players have gone to the pro bowl since the 2004 draft? By my count, 4: Mike Griffin, Nathan Vasher, Roy Williams, and VY.

Lots of players play well their whole careers and just fly under the radar.

Rivals covers similar ground noting that USC for all their drafted players only manged one MNC (and none during the period they were looking at 2005-2009).

While I’ll agree that they have underperformed compared to their talent, the article makes the ridiculous claim that USC should be the decade’s premier program but that likely falls to Florida or OU (it seems they are using just their 2005-2009 data to make a judgment about the period of 2000-2009, so its already pretty much a crap analysis)! USC has won more conference championships (7) than OU in that period and they both have the same single MNC (of course, USC’s came against OU in a blowout). If you are going to pick a team that has multiple MNC losses OSU has a much better profile than OU.

I would still say USC is the premier program of the decade followed by OSU and Florida. OU might fall in fourth though LSU probably deserves some consideration for their two titles.

I’ll repeat: NFL success (or failure) does not necessarily say a whole lot about a football program in college. I will be the first to say that USC’s many conference titles has a lot to do with how overrated the entire Pac-10 is, but USC has been an impressive program this decade and far from overrated themselves.

Ohio State may have earned the description “overrated” for the last several years due to their duds in big games and the overall weakness of the Big 10, but that would be due to their performance at the college game and not because certain players of theirs don’t pan out in the NFL. Ohio State, for all their criticisms, has had a pretty successful decade as well.

Matt Leinart, James Laurinaitis, Troy Smith, Tedd Ginn Jr., Dwayne Jarrett, and Antonio Pittman will not be superstars at the next level. For some, we’re pretty sure they never will be based on their first few years. That doesn’t mean they weren’t good to great college players, because they were.

that I don’t think blame or credit can ever really be given to any one factor for success or failure of a player or a group of players. The player talent and coaching ability present at a school may arguably be judged by that program’s ability to get players into the NFL (though, Graham Harrell was great for Tech regardless of his NFL future), but once there, that player’s success has less to do with the college program he came from than his NFL team’s depth chart, his coach’s philosophy and opinion of that player, and what strengths that player has that can be highlighted against the best players in the world.

A great example is Randy Moss in Minnesota, then Oakland, then New England. His attitude may have contributed to his showing in Oakland, but if stats and Pro Bowls are the measuring stick, he was not a good player in Oakland. Minnesota and NE had the ability to highlight him, and he responded positively both places. The point is the same player can have a different career based on his situation.

With players constantly developing their game via their technique, their understanding of the game, and how they are utilized by coaches, we have to consider them on an upward learning curve until they start to decline physically in a best case scenario. Essentially, the same growth and development players undergo, say, through their 4 years in high school, is matched by the growth and development they undergo in college, and will be matched by their growth and development in the NFL until they reach their full potential, if given that opportunity. So, from the standpoint of the college coach, programs such as Texas, USC, OSU, and a few others generally pick from the upper echelon of talent at the high school level, provide them with some of the best coaching available at the college level, and essentially maximize that individual’s opportunity to develop before the NFL level. None of that, however, implies the ability to read their genetic make-up or whatever and determine if they are picking the players who, once the light comes on, have the best maximum potential. Jerry Rice, Brett Favre, Randy Moss, and many others came from small schools. Does that represent a failure on the part of the big schools to recognize some of the best football talent that ever existed? Or does it present another possibility: that given a relative lack of competition on their own team, they were given opportunity like they may not have received elsewhere, allowing their confidence to grow and them to develop into the players they would be in their future.

I would think that college programs are best judged by their success against college competition, first of all, but secondarily by their ability to provide the type of development that sets the school up to be, essentially, a stepping stone to the NFL. What they do once they are there is another story.