While the NFL is a league supposedly driven by parity, college football is driven by blue-bloods, or near enough... Much has been made over the years as to what constitutes a college football blue-blood. There are apparently eight, but many of them have done an exceptionally poor job of holding onto that claim in recent years, or since the Year 2000. The game has changed so much since then...
Rather than hype up a program that did a lot of great things before World War II, I would much rather discuss great college football programs who have done work in either the College Football Playoff, or at least during the BCS era of the sport. Obviously, there will be some overlap between the Eight College Football Wonders of the Ancient World, and those who are making the sport what is it now.
So what I am going to do today is outline the eight programs that I think have a claim to be the New Blue-Bloods of the sport. Admittedly, there are really only five who past the test I am about to dole out with flying colors. In the sake of getting it to eight, I had to do some mental gymnastics and really try to remember what all happened when George W. Bush was in office. That was easier said than done.
Without further ado, these are the eight best college football programs throughout the 21st century.
8. USC Trojans
It is very close, but I believe the USC Trojans hold onto the No. 8 spot for at least one more year before the Texas Longhorns inevitably surpass them. All of what USC is holding onto is the brilliant, but controversial Pete Carroll era in Los Angeles. The Trojans won back-to-back national titles in 2003-04, one in the BCS and won in the AP. They nearly three-peated in 2005, but lost to Texas...
I remember how dominant USC was in the then-Pac-10 with the likes of Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush all winning Heisman Trophies. Things fizzled out not long after Mark Sanchez and Matt Barkley aged out. While there have been isolated years where the team looked great with Sam Darnold and Caleb Williams at quarterback, the program has devolved into its glamorous decadence.
The longer USC holds onto Lincoln Riley as head coach, the quicker their fall off this list will likely be.
7. Florida Gators
Florida is another precarious program to include on this list. The Gators were throughly dominant under their two iconic head coaches of note in Steve Spurrier and later Urban Meyer. While Spurrier won his lone national title in 1996, Meyer won his first two as a head coach in 2006 and 2008 with teams built around Chris Leak and Tim Tebow. However, Florida has not been the same team since.
They have had moments under Ron Zook, Will Muschamp, Jim McElwain and Dan Mullen, but all were fleeting. Of all the college football programs that have never made a College Football Playoff before, Florida is perhaps the most puzzling. Their three biggest rivals in Florida State, Georgia and LSU have won titles more recently than them. Florida could be on the uptick under Billy Napier, but maybe not...
Despite not making any of the first 11 College Football Playoffs, this program was dominant for years.
6. Oklahoma Sooners
It should not have been this difficult to include Oklahoma on this list, but it certainly was. Historically, I used to view OU as a top-three job in the sport behind only Ohio State and Alabama. Obviously, the Buckeyes and the Crimson Tide are going to crack the top five effortlessly because they have won multiple national titles this century. Oklahoma has one, but that came way back in the Year 2000...
Where OU edges out USC and Florida is that the Sooners have made the College Football Playoff four times. Yes, they are 0-4 in playoff games to date, but their utter dominance of the old Big 12 cannot be ignored. Their stranglehold on the Big 12 after Nebraska departed for the Big Ten and Texas fell off a cliff post-2009 was only rivaled by Alabama in the SEC under Nick Saban and Clemson in the ACC.
At Oklahoma, you could win the Heisman and lose in the national semifinals like nobody's business!
5. LSU Tigers
This is where the list really starts. LSU earned three of its four national championships to date since 2000. A different head coach has won all four of them, including Nick Saban in 2003, Les Miles in 2007 and Ed Orgeron, of all people, coaching the greatest college football team ever assembled in 2019. Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels both won Heisman Trophies playing for the Bayou Bengals.
Where LSU gets dinged when compared to the four other teams ranked ahead of them is this: The Tigers have only made the College Football Playoff once. Yes, they annihilated everyone they played in 2019, but this program has been too up and down when compared to the others. Depending on how you feel about Alabama this year, the three other schools are all locks to make it back in this year.
LSU's spot is safe inside the top eight of college football's new blood, but there is work to be done.
4. Clemson Tigers
This is what it is all about. Growing up in Metro Atlanta, Clemson was the epitome of 8-4 under their former head coach Tommy Bowden. Lil, ole Clemson had a great run in the late 1970s to mid-1980s under Danny Ford, but what Dabo Swinney has built over the lats 15-plus years is the stuff of legend. This former wide receivers coach gave this perennial ACC pretender a new identity to rally behind.
Clemson has won two College Football Playoffs, played in two other national champions and has made the playoff seven of 11 times. Prior to this past year, the Tigers did have a slight dip as a program in the wake of COVID and in the dawn of NIL. Undoubtedly, both factors hurt the team. However, no team is seen as a clearer lock to win its Power Four conference than Clemson this year.
Although they may be one of the most polarizing programs in the country, it is an outstanding one!
3. Georgia Bulldogs
I have to go with my alma mater of Georgia at No. 3. For as much as I love my Dawgs, they do not have as strong of a history as the two truest blue-bloods ranked ahead of them. That being said, the last 25 years have been varying shades of kind to UGA. The Mark Richt era from 2001 to 2015 had its highs, but nothing like what the team has experienced since Kirby Smart took over for him in 2016.
Since 2017, Georgia has made four College Football Playoffs, played in three national title bouts, winning back-to-back national titles in 2021-22. Doing this in the SEC and almost entirely in the four-team format is ultra-impressive. If we want to go back to 2017, Georgia has played in a New Year's Six Bowl every season. If you do the math, that means Georgia has been a "playoff" team every year, too.
Factor in that the Dawgs have not lost a home game since before COVID, few teams are as menacing.
2. Ohio State Buckeyes
I would argue if there is only one college football blue-blood, it has to be the Ohio State Buckeyes. When have they ever been bad? Probably the one year Luke Fickell was serving as the interim. I am too young to remember the hapless John Cooper days. I am just going on what I have seen the Buckeyes do under Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer and now Ryan Day. All three have won national titles.
This perennial playoff fixture out of the Big Ten won the first four-team College Football Playoff, and then a decade later, won the first 12-teamer. They won both as heavy underdogs. Frankly, they did the same thing when the 2002 team shocked the juggernaut Miami Hurricanes on their quest for a repeat. Ohio State has more talent relative to the rest of the Big Ten. Sometimes, they underachieve...
Never repeating as national champions or crushing their foes as the hunted hurts their case for No. 1.
1. Alabama Crimson Tide
It had to be the Alabama Crimson Tide. There was no other option. Although I do think there is a chance that teams like Georgia and Ohio State could overtake them for them top spot in the next 25 years, we cannot deny what this program did under Nick Saban from 2007 to 2023. We are talking about Saban taking a team out of its perpetual quagmire and becoming the best coach of all time.
Saban won six of his seven national titles at Alabama. Three came in the old BCS in 2009 and 2011-12. During the four-team playoff, Alabama won national titles in 2015, 2017 and in 2020. The Crimson Tide made the playoff eight of its first 10 years of existence. The only times a Saban-led team did not qualify was in 2019 and again in 2022. From 2015 to 2021, Alabama played in six national title bouts.
Now that the Saban era is firmly in the rearview mirror, it will be up to Kalen DeBoer to continue this.
Honorable Mentions: Texas Longhorns, Oregon Ducks, Michigan Wolverines, Florida State Seminoles, Notre Dame Fighting Irish