Ranking the Best College Football Teams of All Time
Published February 2, 2025 - 8:37 PM CST
When debating the college football playoff committee rankings each week, the same tried and true question is inevitably asked at some point: is it the best or is it the most deserving team? The answer is usually a riddle, littered with contradictions and diatribes. No one knows for sure, and everyone has an opinion. However, when it comes to evaluating the best college football teams of all time, there is only one criterion that I use: Who is the best team? The team that would win if I had to bet everything I had on them in a hypothetical game.
To clarify, this list is ranking who is subjectively the best team. In other words, who would beat who in a hypothetical matchup? ESPN recently ranked the 150 greatest teams of all time and slotted 1971 Nebraska at #1 overall due to a dominant season by 1971 standards. But how would that 1971 team stack up against some of the modern teams? Probably not so well. Therefore, this list is all about which team is the best and is going to be naturally slanted toward the teams of the 21st century due to players being bigger, faster, and stronger while running more modern football concepts.
#10 2016 Alabama
No, they didn’t win the national championship, but they were the best team in the country in 2016. One of Nick Saban’s best defenses would’ve ranked higher as a team had true freshman Jalen Hurts been a little older that season. After taking over at QB early in the opener against USC, the true freshman Hurts led the Tide all the way to Tampa before losing to Clemson on a controversial rub route that capped an epic Deshaun Watson-led fourth-quarter comeback. Had running back Bo Scarbrough not broken his leg midway through the game, fewer people would have found this ranking controversial. The reality is Scarbrough was running all over Clemson in the same way Derrick Henry had the year before. For these rankings, we have 2016 Alabama as the tenth-best team of all time, irrespective of the outcome of the national championship game.
#9 2018 Clemson
Heading into the national championship game against Alabama, many had already anointed that Alabama team as one of the greatest teams of all time. Following the emergence of Tua Tagovailoa in the 2017 CFP title game, Alabama rolled through the season undefeated with Tua largely sitting out the second half of most games that had already been decided. Despite being a 6.5-point favorite, Clemson steamrolled Alabama 44-16 and dominated all phases of the game. This team would also find itself higher on the list if true freshman QB Trevor Lawrence were more experienced. Clemson boasted a strong defensive front that carried the Tigers until the offense hit its stride under the freshman phenom.
#8 2019 Alabama
For all of the championship teams that Nick Saban had, some of his best teams were teams that didn’t win the championship. After an embarrassing end to the 2018 season, many expected Alabama to bounce back with a vengeance in 2019, as it returned an incredible quintuplet of wide receivers alongside QB Tua Tagovailoa. There was only one problem: Joe Burrow and the LSU Tigers were on the schedule. After running through most of the regular season with ease, Alabama fell at home to Joe Burrow and company in November. A couple of weeks later, Tua broke his hip on the road at Mississippi State, prematurely ending his career at Alabama. This was still one of the greatest teams of all time because of the offense alone, and we cannot remove them from consideration just because they played another team that is even higher on this list. Better play on defense would have this team higher on the list.
#7 2008 Florida
This was the peak of the Tim Tebow era. After losing to Ole Miss in September and issuing his famous promise, Tebow and the Gators rolled the rest of the way, completely demolishing LSU, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida State en route to a BCS Championship game victory over Oklahoma, 24-14. The 14 points scored by Oklahoma were significant because the Sooners entered the game having scored 60 points or more in five straight games and were led by Heisman trophy-winning QB Sam Bradford. The Gator defense completely shut down the prolific Oklahoma offense in the Championship game.
#6 2001 Miami
There seems to be a cult following for the 2001 Miami team when it comes to debating the best college football team of all time. Could we argue the ‘Canes were the most talented team of all time? Sure, the Canes share the record with 2020 Alabama for most first-round picks in any NFL draft with six, and there were a lot more players on that roster that went on to have Hall of Fame careers in the NFL. However, we are ranking the best teams of all time, and the biggest reason Miami wouldn’t beat the top five teams on this list is because of the play of QB Ken Dorsey. Dorsey was a solid player, but he was nothing special compared to the other QBs on these teams listed. Having the abundance of riches around him that he did, Dorsey put up great numbers, but I would expect him to struggle against some of the defenses on this list. Additionally, I wonder how their offense, which is antiquated by today’s college football standards, would fare against some of the modern defenses. I would put Dorsey in the same category as QBs such as Chris Weinke, Danny Wuerffel, and Jason White who looked better than they were because of the players around them and their offensive style of play. This Miami defense is up there with 2011 and 2016 Alabama defenses, but in the modern era, QB play trumps everything else, and I don’t think they would score a lot of points against some of these teams.
If we’re splitting hairs, which we have to do at this point, Miami struggled to put away a two-loss Virginia Tech team to close out the regular season. This was a Virginia Tech squad that lacked a quality win on its resume and had lost Michael Vick the year before to the NFL draft. The Hokies were a Mark Andrews-esque dropped two-point conversion away from forcing overtime. It’s true that Miami routed Nebraska in the national championship game and unofficially killed the option offense in Pasadena, but let’s not forget Nebraska was boat-raced to close out the regular season by Colorado and never should’ve made the big game to start with. You have to love the BCS.
#4 (tie) 2005 USC & 2005 Texas
The 2005 USC team was the peak of the Pete Carroll era. Going for the ever-elusive three-peat, expectations were enormous. Before there was Nick Saban and Alabama, there was Pete Carroll and USC. The Trojans were the team to beat every season and got everyone’s best shot. Led by two Heisman Trophy winners from two different seasons, QB Matt Leinart and RB Reggie Bush, the Trojans were unstoppable on offense. They found themselves on a collision course with another historically good team, the Texas Longhorns. The 2005 Rose Bowl was one of the greatest college football games ever played. Vince Young delivered the greatest performance you will ever see in a big game and willed the Longhorns back late in the fourth quarter for the win. These two teams are tied for #4 because there is no way to say one team is better than the other. If these two teams played in a best-of-seven series, it would almost certainly come down to a game seven. While 2004 USC had an incredible defense, neither of these teams had a historically great defense in 2005, which prevents them from being ranked any higher than fourth.
#3 2004 USC
Much like Clemson in 2018, we couldn’t fully appreciate 2004 USC until after the National Championship game because so many people thought Oklahoma was the best team in college football that year. USC entered the BCS national championship game as a three-point favorite, but many pundits predicted Oklahoma to win. In fact, both teams remained ranked #1 and #2 for the entire season just as USC and Texas did in 2005. The game featured two Heisman trophy QBs going head to head (Jason White and Matt Leinart) in the championship game for the first time. Oklahoma scored first to go up 7-0, but the Trojans went on a 55-3 run to make it 55-10 before Oklahoma tacked on 9 points at the end of the game to make it look closer than it was - 55-19.
This USC team had a much stronger defense than the 2005 team, which relied more on its offense. Despite that, the 2004 team had most of the same offense that returned in 2005, including Heisman Trophy winners Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush. This was Pete Carroll’s best team, and remarkably, it is the only team in College Football this century to be ranked number one from start to finish. If we’re nitpicking, it’s worth noting that there were some close wins at unranked Oregon State and Stanford.
#1 (tie) 2019 LSU & 2020 Alabama
While it’s hard to argue for any other team being at the top of this list, you can really start an argument by picking one of these two teams over the other. And after going back and forth and playing out different scenarios, I just can’t pick one over the other. There are so many statistics and metrics we could use to compare these teams, but the reality is we’re just splitting hairs. Joe Burrow’s 2019 season was statistically the greatest season ever for a QB and there wasn’t a close second. Also, the offense boosted the most talented WR duo ever to play in college football, Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. This offense was, in a word, unstoppable. Sure, the defense gave up some points, but history has shown us that for every incredible offense, its defense tends to slack. Is that human nature to slack off when you know the offense can’t be stopped? It could be.
Then came Alabama in 2020. The year of COVID-19 where the SEC decided to play a conference-only schedule. All of the cupcake teams that SEC detractors wanted to see eliminated were gone. What did Alabama do against an SEC-only schedule? They destroyed everything in their path. Mac Jones broke the passing efficiency record that Burrow had set the year before. Alabama had three players on their offense finish in the top five of the Heisman Trophy voting, and they ran through their All-SEC schedule without ever playing a game that was remotely in doubt before blasting a really good Ohio State team in the national championship game.
What is it that sets these two teams apart from the rest of the teams on this list? For starters, the modern RPO offenses ran at the college level would give any of the aforementioned elite defense nightmares. The game has evolved rapidly over the past ten years, and teams from the early 2000s look completely different from teams today. Joe Brady and Steve Sarkisian are phenomenal playcallers and their offenses could not be stopped or even slowed down by anyone. Defense may win championships in some years, but in 2019 and 2020 no defense was stopping these two teams.
So, why the tie? You can make your case for either using data and relative comparisons, but I think it’s really simple: whichever team has the ball last is going to win this game. If these two teams played ten times, I don’t believe one team would win more than six times. And there’s no other team in college football history that could win a series against either of these two teams. That’s what makes them equally the greatest team in college football history. Debating which team is better is incredibly fun, but let’s be real, we’re splitting hairs.
Honorable Mentions:
2023 Michigan - good but not dominant by any historic measures
2022 Georgia - a missed FG away from losing to Ohio State; good team but not a great team
2013 Florida State - dominated ACC play but struggled with a historically average Auburn team in the championship game
2012 Alabama - good offense and defense but not dominant on either side; struggled with Georgia in the SECCG
2011 Alabama - one of the best defenses in college football history but lacked offensive firepower; the kicking game was atrocious
2010 Auburn - generational talent in Cam Newton; could have easily lost three or four games
2009 Alabama - undefeated but not as talented as future Saban teams
2004 Oklahoma - overshadowed by USC but a solid team
2002 Miami - robbed by Ohio State; much of the 2001 team had gone to the NFL already
1999 Florida State - went wire to wire at #1 but Chris Weinke was extremely overrated
1996 Florida - avenged their only loss to Florida State in dominant fashion
1995 Nebraska - arguably the most dominant team of the last thirty years but how would they fare against a modern roster and style of play?
