Now, if you enjoy defense, this game was the antithesis of "best." College Gameday descended on Beale Street in a sign indicative of how far American Athletic Conference members Memphis and SMU have come after reaching dismal lows. A former five-star recruit out of Wharton High School in Tampa, Fla., Hargreaves was ranked as the No. Without the 1970s, the sport doesn't end up with the television heft it would find in the 1980s. One facet of college football that held true throughout the decade: Each Saturday delivered excitement, unpredictable and fun. 184 overall prospect and No. Charlie Brewer's four touchdowns set the initial pace, as it seemed Baylor was headed to the signature win of Matt Rhule's tenure. Ninety-eight point four percent. In the 1990s, the Seminoles were more dominant than Alabama in the 1970s, Oklahoma in the 1950s, etc. They were briefly the class of the Border Conference. How every conference should scrap divisions, How a season gets soundtracked by one song, The 10 best programs of each decade, ever, Alabama's now had the TWO best dynasties ever, Book excerpt! They finished in the AP top four every year from 1987-99. Ball was a four-year player for the Badgers, but only his junior and senior seasons occurred during this decade. Follow him on Twitter @kensing45. As this decade comes to a close, it’s time to define the best teams from this era of college football. Of course not. To celebrate the decade that was, the USA TODAY Sports college football staff picked the 10 best players of the 2010s. In 36 career games with the Gators, he tallied 121 tackles, three tackles for loss, 10 interceptions and 27 pass breakups. With Knute Rockne having taken over in 1918, Notre Dame blazed through the decade, as well. And all that takes a backseat to the clock stoppage that allowed Gus Malzahn to run out his field goal unit before halftime and tack on three points that ultimately added to the difference. Vanderbilt and Sewanee (a.k.a. 4 strong-side defensive end in the 2013 class, according to the 247Sports Composite. And, the Knights appeared poised to add to the streak when rallying from a halftime deficit with 21 third-quarter points, and a field goal in the late fourth quarter that gave them a six-point lead. (Wikimedia Commons). While Urban Meyer's Ohio State, Bob Stoops' Oklahoma, Les Miles' LSU, Chip Kelly's and Mark Helfrich's Oregon, and Jimbo Fisher's FSU have all had elite runs, no team has been as steadily great as Stanford. They are college football's supernova; they light up the sky, then they burn out. USC made a brilliant run under Pete Carroll, but started the decade slowly (11-13 in 2000-01) and got dinged by some iffy schedule strength in the Pac-10. He won both the Chuck Bednarik and Jim Thorpe awards as a junior. 18 defensive tackle in the 2013 class, according to the 247Sports Composite. According to the plaque commemorating the All-Decade Team, every season from 2011 through 2019 was taken into account when selecting the honorees. No longer the FCS Cinderella that stunned Michigan in 2007, Appalachian State's proven itself a more-than-viable FBS program. He was named a consensus All-American in each of his final two seasons, notching 107 tackles, eight tackles for loss, four sacks and two interceptions in 14 games as a junior before finishing his senior season with 106 tackles, nine tackles for loss, five pass breakups and a forced fumble en route to winning the Butkus Award for the nation’s top linebacker. Minnesota stormed ahead by two touchdowns in the first half and energized the home crowd, but Penn State chipped away at the deficit. While the rest of this countdown focuses on the FBS for the sake of brevity — we might be here all day including such games as Stony Brook's wild win over Rhode Island, decided on a fourth-down touchdown run from the 50-yard line, or Southeastern Louisiana's playoff shootout defeat of Villanova — the FCS National Championship Game is too good to exclude. USC finished in the AP top two five times, Bo Schembechler's Wolverines caught Woody Hayes' Buckeyes, Notre Dame made a national title run with Dan Devine and Texas was consistently awesome. A former four-star recruit out of DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Md., Kouandjio was ranked as the No.