Factoid 46 - College Football from 2000 to 2009

The 2000s saw three schools add college football as a sport: the Florida Atlantic Owls; the FIU Panthers; and the South Alabama Jaguars. All three schools would start out in a lower division and have by now moved up to Division I. The Florida Atlantic Owls and the FIU Panthers are members of Conference USA, while the South Alabama Jaguars are members of the Sun Belt Conference.

The following schools won a BCS National Title in this decade: LSU (2); Florida (2); Texas (1); Alabama (1); USC (1); Ohio State (1); Miami (1); and Oklahoma (1). Interestingly, various polling services would still at times crown different champions. The BCS National game is not without controversy, especially in years when there are four or five teams with identical records at the end of the year; this system is still very imperfect. (Oklahoma, USC [3], Ohio State, Miami, Utah, and Missouri were also each voted champions outside of the BCS poll for this decade.)

The SEC would win five of the ten BCS titles for this decade, winning four straight at the end of the decade. This dominance would continue into the next decade. One major advantage the SEC schools had during this decade was to pay assistants six figure salaries.

This decade also saw the reemergence of the LSU Tigers as a national championship contender, winning their first such title in over 50 years for the 2003 season; Coach Nick Saban lead them to the 2003 title, and Coach Les Miles lead them to the 2007 title.