
Michael Huff was the Jim Thorpe Award winner and, like Young, became a top-10 NFL draft pick. Young wasn't the only star for Texas, which also boasted a top-10 defense. In the 2006 Rose Bowl against heavily favored USC, Young completed 30 of 40 passes for 267 yards, rushed for 200 yards and delivered the game-winning play, an 8-yard touchdown dash on fourth down with 19 seconds remaining. Quarterback Vince Young, remarkably, didn't win the Heisman Trophy that season, but he produced one of the greatest individual seasons in recent college football history, culminating with one of the greatest individual game performances the sport has ever seen. The 2005 Longhorns are the top championship team of the past 20 years in large part because they claim the best player of the past 20 years. Vince Young led Texas to the national championship but didn't win the Heisman Trophy in 2005.

With that in mind, let's get to the list. The network establishes a team's strength interrelated with every other team in the network and returns a rating measured in points above the average team (zero rating). The model includes a giant network of all FBS college football teams that played approximately 15,000 games over 20 years and assigns each team to a game, score and home-field advantage indicator within each season. To celebrate 20 years of championship games, ESPN Analytics calculated overall, offensive and defensive ratings to find the true strength of a champion through a comparison of top college football programs across seasons.

Who won the college football championship last year series#
The college football world changed dramatically when the Bowl Championship Series was formed 20 years ago, giving the sport a definitive championship game for the first time.
