re: Program of the Decade

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Maybe dumb question: when do you end the decade? End of 2009 season (Jan 2010)? Or end of 2010 season (Jan 2011)? Is there consensus?

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Not a dumb question. Back on the old AOL boards, this debate was legendary regarding "the decade" of the '90s.

The argument for counting from 2001-2010 is rooted in the understanding that the calendar started with year 1, not year 0. Thus, the "first decade" was 1-10, and proceeding decade by decade that would leave us with the current decade being 2001-2010.

However, my take on it is that debates like "who is the college football program of the decade" are not really about counting time from the beginning of the calendar. They are about assessing the relative strengths of different college football teams throughout an arbitrarily defined period of 10 years. And since the most common colloquial reference to a decade is by its tens digit ("the '70s", "the '80s", "the '90s", etc.), the period defined by those terms would be the grouping of ten consecutive years that share the same value in their tens digit. Therefore "the '80s" would be 1980-1989, "the '90s" would be from 1990-1999, and "the '00s" (the current decade) would be from 2000-2009. It follows, then, that a discussion of the colloquial "such-and-such of the decade" would logically follow the same reference.

That is why I include the 2000 season in the "program of the decade" discussion, even though it adds another 8-win season for LSU and another SEC Championship for Florida. I guess I could be like some "objective" people and just pick some random year in the middle of the decade to start counting from (like, say, 2002); but I guess I'm such a "homer" that I just have to include the whole decade in a discussion of "the decade."

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Its Florida. There on a different level that everyone else.

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See, I think that is weighing too much on the current state of affairs. The Zook year, though they seem a distant memory now, are a part of the equation. I agree that they have a slight lead on us, but I think the difference is that they had two last good Spurrier years to start the decade.

But next year will decide it one way or the other, anyway.

LSU

LSU

USC

They have played in a BCS bowl every year since 2002. They never took a break one year and went somewhere like the Capitol One or Peach Bowl.

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They never took a break one year and went somewhere like the Capitol One or Peach Bowl.

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Well the year before they lost the Las Vegas Bowl while LSU won the Sugar Bowl.

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Well the year before they lost the Las Vegas Bowl while LSU won the Sugar Bowl.

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And the year before that they had a losing record. LSU hasn't done that even once this decade. And we don't get to play 8 games against the Pac 10 every year.

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Well I guess it really is LSU then. The more you think about it.

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If someone wants to say Southern Cal or Florida,go for it. But spare me the smug,stupid,condescending "take off the P&G glasses" or "what a bunch of homers" stupid garbage. LSU is one of two teams to have won 2 BCS titles.LSU won another SEC title and has won 4 BCS bowls this decade.Those are legitimate accomplishments.

Any douchebag acting tough about an LSU fan selecting LSU can go to hell,IMO.