The Best football programs in the country.

There have been some tremendous shake-ups in the world of college football over the last month which have forced me to apply my reasoning power as the assistant to the VP of Common Sense.
First Urban Meyer retired…then he came back. Then there was speculation that Will Muschamp would leave Texas for X job. Pete Carrol abandoned USC like an unwanted growing puppy and that snake Lane Kiffin slithered in. Now there is the question of who takes the Tennessee job, whether Muschamp stays at UT or goes to Tennessee and it all amounts to one big question for me:

Which NCAA football program is in the best shape right now? Which power programs are in the best shape to make attempts on the ultimate goal in college football? Winning money, er, I mean championships. So I’m doing this the only way I know how…a top 15 list. Top 15 programs in terms of position to win heading into the new decade.

Honorable Mentions:
West Virginia, always have a chance in the Big East.
Nebraska: Coming back but have poor recruiting base and compete with OU and Texas every year.
Oregon St: also on the up and up but competing with big time powers.
California: Let’s be real Chad, if they were going to do anything it would have happened already.
Auburn: As long as they have OC Gus Malzahn I think they’ll be competitive. I still think Chizik is a poor coach overall though.

15). Boise State.

They narrowly edge out TCU for “team that can beat anyone in one game but will never have a chance to win the championship.” That’s probably not accurate, if there hadn’t been 2 undefeated superpowers this season one of Cincinnati, TCU, or Boise St. would have been in. Ultimately it’s a long shot though. So despite the wonderful performance of Boise State in recent years and strong state of the program, they are on the outside looking in.

14). Virgina Tech:

Because of Frank Beamer’s coaching of special teams, defense, and option football Virgina Tech consistenly affords themselves the chance to be good every year and compete in the BCS picture. Recruiting has been solid and development even better. Additionally, they are a powerhouse for where they are.

13). Michigan

They look to be in terrible shape and Rich Rodriguez is on the hot seat. Also, the main city of Michigan, Detroit, is a virtual ghost town that resembles Manhattan in “Escape from New York” more and more each day. So why are they so high? For one, Michigan is a traditional powerhouse with a great resource base. Recruiting is down a ways (again, dealing with a terrible state) but I have a lot of faith in the following:
a). Rich Rodriguez and his staff: He has one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the country. They used to transform guys at West Virgina. Additionally, they are converting the school from having big, clunky pro-style offenses to having fast zone-option teams. Eventually I think they get it together.
b). The potential of Michigan in the Big 10. I think the Big 10 has become wildly underrated, but it’s still an easier place to thrive than the SEC I must admit.
c). Even if Rodriguez is gone the school still has some money and resources to pluck someone. I think it’s likely they will reach the top 10 again. It would help if the auto industry could get their act together.

12). Notre Dame

Another classic Northern power weakened by poor coaching choices and a questionable recruiting base. It’s simply really hard to pluck guys from SEC country and Texas has a lot to offer but you are picking behind Texas, OU, LSU and other Big 12 schools for a lot of these kids. Nevertheless, when you have resources like Michigan or Notre Dame you can still compete for recruits and coaches. I think the hiring of Brian Kelly is a good one for providing Notre Dame with a coach who can win with normal college players.

Charlie Weiss ran an NFL offense and had terrible defensive squads. He required the best lineman, quarterbacks and receivers (and he got some) to execute the offense effectively enough to dominate at the college level. Brian Kelly runs a spread offense, knows the Ohio river valley recruiting territory, the Texas grounds, and has a much simpler and better understanding of how to run scheme at the college level.

11). Oregon

Oregon has that awesome deal with Nike that provides them with new uniforms all the time, national attention, and money. Coach Chip Kelly is another spread guru who has constructed some tremendous offenses at Oregon as OC and now Head Coach.

The recruiting base is pretty solid with California a modern untapped Gold mine since USC can’t take all the talent and there aren’t many other huge powers in the region to compete with given UCLA’s decline and California’s impotence. Take a look at the players Oregon has put in the NFL the past few years and you’ll get a sense of the talent level of their squads. This season saw Oregon in the Rose Bowl and I don’t think that will be a short-lived phenomenon.

10). Miami

They haven’t done a ton recently save for some early season success but they are getting back to big time Florida recruiting and have really loaded up on recent recruiting classes. Head Coach Randy Shannon is everything that the old U wasn’t. Talent mixed in with a blue collar attitude, discipline and respect. The old U were undisciplined, disrespectful, and supremely talented and competitive, perhaps nowhere more than their own practices.

Anyways, in the modern College world, a Florida school that can do things right is a top 10 program.

9). Georgia

And here comes the SEC. Georgia is one of the more effective recruiting schools in the country, living off of the fat of the land down in the south. With all that talent they can’t help but knock over some people from time to time, and the defensive coaching has been very good.

However, I have about as much respect for Mark Richt as a offensive mind as I do Greg Davis at Texas. Provided with great talent they can out execute the lesser squads but get in worlds of trouble against defenses that can match up on their athletes or expose weak points. Anyways, they reach the top 10 despite Mark Richt and being in the SEC because they are talented enough year in and out to have a shot at the title. They would do well to get off Florida’s bad list though.

8). Penn State

I’m guessing Joe Paterno coaches at Penn State until he is dead since he’s been there something like 50 years. The state of Penn st. football has been about the same for decades. Paterno’s tenure there has no equivalent unless you can imagine if Darrel K. Royal still coached at Texas.

Given that fact, Penn State is often slow to adjust to modern schemes and trends but usually on the cusp. They build fantastic linebackers and they’ve been close to national championships in recent years. They’re adoption of the spread offense paired with their traditional Cover-3 style defense dominated by fierce linebackers earns them a spot on in the top 10 but their presence in the Big 10 (again an easier conference to navigate given the right situation) pushes them over Miami and Georgia.

7). Oklahoma

Oklahoma was probably at or near the top of this list at the beginning of the decade. Stoops defenses were terrorizing the Big 12, recruiting was fantastic and Texas looked like they didn’t know how to defend against the body shots, much less throw a counterpunch.

Then Big Game Bob started losing big games. Coaches worked out how to attack their aggressive defense and the offenses were usually short of being the total package. Quarterback play has been poor in years not featuring Nate Heupel and Sam Bradford (Jason White’s Heisman was a bad joke) and they have lost their stranglehold on Dallas recruiting which has vaulted Texas above them.
Worst of all, Mack Brown has won 4 of 5 games in the Cotton Bowl and recent Big 12 success has come through the back door despite losses to Texas rather than as a result of Crimson dominance. All that said, OU is still pulling in great players. Stoops defenses have never shocked people like in 2000 but have still been very good, and their no-huddle offense from last year set the trend nationally. If not for Texas…

6). LSU

They have a recent championship and tons of great recruiting from Louisiana (where they are often uncontested) and the Houston and East Texas area. Les Miles is something less than a genius and his division will often be more than he can overcome but the program has proven they can backdoor their way into national championships with superior talent and the recognition of being an SEC squad.
On offense they are trying to run some spread schemes but have faltered due to Ryan Perriloux turning out to be some kind of menace and no emergence as of yet from Russel Shephard.
On defense they’ve been somewhat underachieving given their talent level and the level of difficulty they face in bad SEC offenses. They are a great coach short from being a top 5 program.

5). The Ohio State University

Jim Tressel can’t quite give up his uber-conservative play-calling which has hamstrung the potential of his offenses against talented defenses that know what’s coming. However his recruiting and use of Terrelle Pryor and Troy Smith before demonstrate the beginning of an understanding of how to break away from his predictable power-run based offense towards a more versatile and unstoppable unit.

On defense they have virtually no peer. They produce NFL defenders every season and show inventiveness on defense you wouldn’t expect from watching the play-calling on offense. Sweater-vest has also shocked Texas in all of their engagements demonstrating in each occasion how Texas is best defended while also showing up with offensive game plans that took Texas by surprise.

In national championships they have looked weak and unimaginative on offense and have come up short time and time again. Still, Tressel defense, plus Ohio recruiting, plus Pryor puts them in great shape for the new decade.

4). Florida

Only no. 4 you say? Ridiculous, they are pulling in a ridiculous recruiting class, have won 2 titles in 4 years and retain Urban Meyer and his crazy spread option. Florida has a long term recruiting base, staff vision for implementing the state’s talent. Urban Meyer has shown talent before for tweaking his offense to suit his quarterbacks and a knack for burning defenses in big games. The overall emphasis on speed at Florida has proven the stupid “you can’t run that spread stuff against SEC speed” talk to be idiotic. Not only did he do so immediately, with a non-running quarterback, but he then built the fastest team in the conference.

But, it’s unclear if Meyer can hang around with his health issues. Is he really back? Can he handle the responsibilities and work habits that got Florida this far? He just lost some more valuable staff pieces, including their defensive coordinator who was behind the units that really won those 2 championships for the Gators, this after losing the offensive coordinator the following year. As we saw with Carrol’s USC, the loss of coordinators and staff adds up eventually. It’s hard to rebuild the chemistry and philosophy with revolving doors in important spots. Definitely a lot of work for a coach with health problems, not to mention his stiff competition week to week and the rise of another program you know is coming soon.

3). USC

What? Let me start with this. Lane Kiffin is a snake. The way he sold himself and what he was about to Tennessee reeked of arrogance, lack of appreciation for anything not-USC, and overall entitlement from the Coach’s son. I don’t think he’s a phenomenal schemer (in the football sense that is), overall teacher, or person.

But he’s a great mastermind. He surrounded himself with a great staff at Tennessee hiring Ed Orgeron (recruiting wizard, d-line mastermind and former head coach) and papa Monte Kiffin (tampa-2 defensive mastermind). Actually, let me review that part in parenthesis, this man invented the modern tampa-2 defense. This is the defense that Tony Dungy has used at Tampa Bay (obviously), Indianapolis and was copied by coordinators Lovie Smith (Bears defense, you heard much about it?) and Mike Tomlin at Minnesota and later Pittsburgh. It’s one of the most dominant defensive schemes in the NFL today. Monte Kiffin made it and now he’s making his son look good.

Now the word on the street is that Lane has added former USC great Norm Chow to the fold as offensive coordinator. Chow is another big time pro-style xs and os guy from the West Coast school of thought (short, timed passes. The stuff Greg Davis runs at Texas).

Essentially, little Kiffin has assembled an NFL coaching staff at a location where a team can actually run pro-style schemes and get away with it. California, as I’ve mentioned, has an enormous recruiting base and little competition for USC from other major programs. I don’t think another program will have the pedigree and genius of Kiffin’s staff here and they all seem intent on re-living the glory days of the early Pete Carrol era.

That’s one problem here, I’m not sure if all this “remember the good old days” stuff will fly trying to recreate something that has already past. Another problem is that Carrol probably left for a reason. USC could be facing major NCAA sanctions. Also, you would hope that Lane would be on the receiving end of some justice.

2). Alabama

Alabama is back. Nick Saban is exercising his Napoleon syndrome in a conference where he won’t likely lack for competitors to challenge him and bring out his obsessive work demons. The state of Alabama is pretty recruit rich and there is enough going on there now to draw other southern and Texas recruits to Saban’s fold.

The coaching there is good on both sides of the ball. The defense is sophisticated, tricky and well executed while the offense is simple and brutal. They’ll always be tough to beat and as they continue to draw Saban recruits it won’t get easier. Very little is going bad here. It’s easier to maintain a strong running game system and good defense than a West Coast offense year in and year out. Also, despite his slithering past I think Saban is going to be here for some time. So why is Alabama only number two?

Well first of all, the difference between Saban and Jim Tressel is not great. If you look at Saban’s record in some big games you won’t see the fiery destroyer of worlds the media hype would have you believe. His defense is great, like Tressel’s, but not necessarily as versatile as the numbers suggest. Texas almost torched them with a freshman quarterback thrown into the title game after one of the greatest quarterbacks ever was injured.The overall plan and execution against reeling Florida has covered up a 7 yard per play average by the Florida offense that came short in the red zone from blowing up the scoreboard. The offense, while well coached and consistently good, will never be like the 2005 Texas offense, or the 2004-05 USC offenses, or the better Florida offenses. In college football, it’s hard to be king if you aren’t bringing the biggest gun. Also, they have fewer overall resources than at number 1.

1). Texas

Surprised? Mack Brown has built something that will last and a program that he’ll have a tough time giving up before a few more years with all the talent and potential.

When it comes to recruiting, Texas has been able to select their talent from arguably the deepest state in the country and then mold it with some of the finer coaches available (except on O-line what are they doing?). With the recent success in the Dallas area Texas has overcome the stigma there of being racist and combined with their success in the annual Dallas game the last 5 years and the growth of Central Texas football has Texas in great position in this state.

The overall coaching of the talent is fantastic. The offenses have been successfully built around quarterback strengths (even if it took some time) and have consistently pounded the lesser competition while showing just enough versatility in recent big games.

The defense is now in the hands of one of the better defensive teachers and minds in the game (all those SEC schools are constantly trying to lure him away) and the long-term stability of the program has been placed in his hands.

Also the money, it’s real good at Texas right now. So let’s review Texas’ situation in the upcoming decade:

1). Reeling Rivals: Tommy Tuberville is a great coach and Texas Tech is a looming danger next season. But the year to year danger from the Mike Leach offenses and the tremendous hassle of trying to prepare for that offense every year was a big burden and an easy stumbling block. Well that’s gone now. Texas A&M only looks good against Texas and Mike Sherman’s project wavers from week to week. Oklahoma is reeling. They’ll be good, for sure, but they’ve been put in their place.

2). Great recruiting. This is just a constant.

3). Staff stability. If there’s one thing we’ve seen about Greg Davis it’s that he isn’t going anywhere. Duane Akina withstood a demotion to keep coaching up first rate defensive backs in Austin and we discussed Muschamp.

It’s easy to foresee how there will be seasons in the Big 12 like 2009 where Texas has great pieces in place and can roll over the rest of these squads. Easier, I have argued, then it is for any other school in the nation. We’ll see if I’m right.