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Teams of the Decade

With the 2000's drawing to a close, college football fans everywhere are debating - Who has been the best team of this decade? Chris Preston gives his top five contenders.

By Chris Preston

With only two weeks to go before the final season of the '00s (is that what we call it? I'm still not sure) kicks off, pretty soon sportswriters and bloggers will start weighing in with their "best of the decade" lists in college football. So I figured I would beat them to the punch.

The game of the decade? That's easy – Texas 41, USC 38 in the 2005 national championship game. Hands down. Player of the decade? That's tougher. Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, Vince Young, Ed Reed and, of course, Tim Tebow are the first who come readily to mind. What about coach of the decade? Gotta be Pete Carroll, Nick Saban, or Urban Meyer, the latter two of which have guided two different schools to BCS games.

But most of the "best of" talk you will hear over the coming months will center on Team of the Decade. That issue arises in every sport any time a new decade approaches. The Boston Red Sox are – and who would have thought this 10 years ago – probably the team of the decade in Major League Baseball.

In the NBA, I'd say the Lakers in a tight one over the Spurs.

I'd give the Patriots the nod over the Steelers in the NFL, regardless of what happens this season.

Teams of the decade are more difficult to determine in college sports, however. There are simply so many of them, and even the strongest programs experience their shares of ebbs and floes. Just look at Kentucky and Indiana basketball the last few years. Because recruiting is the lifeblood of sustained excellence at the major college level, ultimately every school is at the mercy of 16- to 18-year-old high school kids. Success on the recruiting trail can thus be a very fickle thing.

There are a handful of college football programs who have clearly sustained success better than others this decade, however. With one year to go, I see five programs still in the running to capture the unofficial title of Team of the Decade. The 2009 season could be the deciding factor, and in all likelihood it will be considering that all five teams are among the top 10 in the USA Today preseason coaches' poll. As you might expect, all have already claimed at least one national championship this decade. One more to close out the decade would put each of them over the top.

Without further ado, here are my Team of the Decade candidates, in ascending order, as we enter the 2009 season:

5) Florida Gators

Probably seems too low for a team that has won two of the last three national championships and is the overwhelming preseason favorite this year, doesn't it? If Tebow and company do add a third crystal ball to their trophy collection this season, the Gators would certainly vault to the top of my list. But consider: Florida has posted just four double-digit win seasons and three top-10 finishes during the '00s and have only the sixth-most wins among BCS conference programs. The Ron Zook era, from 2002-04, was a total disaster by Gators' standards. Florida lost five games in each of the Zookster's three seasons and never cracked the top 20 in any of the final polls. And lest we forget, the Gators lost four games just two years ago despite Tim Tebow's Herculean run to the Heisman trophy as a sophomore. Right now no college team is as hot as Florida. But their struggles under Zook prevent the Gators from ranking any higher than this – at least for the time being.

4) Texas Longhorns

Playing under one coach, Mack Brown, for the entire decade, Texas is the only squad to finish in the top 12 in each of the last nine years. The Longhorns' 96 wins rank second among BCS schools this decade and their 18 losses rank first, plus they've won all three BCS games in which they've appeared. Led by Vince Young, their undefeated national championship team in '05 was quite possibly the greatest single-season college team this decade. Still, the Longhorns have played in more Holiday Bowls than BCS bowls, and have claimed only one Big 12 championship. That said, this has been the most consistent college program of the '00s.

3) LSU Tigers

What's amazing about the Bayou Tigers is that they've had almost equal success under two separate coaches. Nick Saban bolted for NFL riches after guiding LSU to its first national championship in school history back in '03. But the Tigers have hardly missed a beat under his successor, Les Miles, capturing the '07 crown as well. With a 90-27 record, the Tigers have won at least eight games every year of the decade. They've been to four BCS bowls and a Cotton Bowl, and finished in the top 10 five times. LSU hasn't rolled out the mega stars at the glamour positions like Florida or Texas, but nasty defenses spearheaded by guys like 2007 Lombardi winner Glenn Dorsey have made the Tigers an fearsome foe year in and year out.

2) Oklahoma Sooners

I know, I know – they lost national championship games to both LSU and Florida this decade. Shouldn't those teams be ahead of them? Not when you consider that the Sooners have racked up the most wins (102) of any program this decade, failing to win 10 games only once. They have tied for the most BCS bowl appearances with seven, claimed six Big 12 titles despite the presence of mighty Texas, and finished in the top 10 seven times. Two of its quarterbacks (Jason White in '03, Sam Bradford last season) have been Heisman trophy winners. In recent years Bob Stoops has earned the reputation of being unable to win the big one, but that wasn't the case at the turn of the century. Oklahoma won the first national championship of the decade, ousting defending champion Florida State to polish off an undefeated season. If the Sooners bookend that title with a decade-closing championship this year, people will be able to start safely calling Stoops 'Big Game Bob' again.

1) USC Trojans

Who were you expecting, Notre Dame? After an inauspicious start to the '00s (5-7 in 2000, Paul Hackett's last year as head coach; 6-6 in 2001 in year one under Pete Carroll), the Men of Troy have finished in the national top four in each of the last seven seasons. They were a Vince Young fourth-down scamper away from winning three straight national titles from '03 to '05. The Rose Bowl has morphed into the USC Invitational, as the Trojans annually bludgeon some overmatched Big Ten team in the Granddaddy of Them All. Their record is a ridiculous 82-9 the last seven years, and their run of Pac-10 titles now stands at seven. And with Bush, Leinart and Carson Palmer all winning Heismans and established or emerging NFL All-Pros like Troy Polamalu, Lofa Tatupu, LenDale White, and Mark Sanchez, no program is more star-studded than USC. The Trojans' prestige now is such that their home games have become a trendy Los Angeles hot spot for the likes of Will Ferrell and Snoop Dogg. So unless one of the four teams listed above wins another national championship this season, USC is my runaway leader in the clubhouse for Team of the Decade.