Florida’s mid-2000s run still carries enough weight to stand above every other college football program of the 2000s.
That’s the call CBS Sports’ Chip Patterson made while picking the best team of each decade from the 1920s through today, with the Gators landing the 2000s spot. Oklahoma and Texas were listed as honorable mentions.
Florida’s case starts with the hardware. Under Urban Meyer, the Gators won a pair of national championships in a three-year stretch, and that era remains central to how the program is remembered. Meyer’s place in Gainesville will get another nod in the 2026 season, when he is finally set to enter the Ring of Honor during a game to be determined this upcoming season.
The names from that team still resonate, too. Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin, Brandon Spikes and Ahmad Black are all still part of the conversation when people talk about Florida’s peak years. And the program has kept a direct link to that championship standard on the staff, with former offensive lineman Phil Trautwein now serving as the offensive line coach as Jon Sumrall takes over in Gainesville.
Patterson’s reasoning leaned heavily on the way the SEC took over the decade. Using current conference membership, the league can claim seven of the 10 national championships from the 2000s, with only the 2001 Miami, 2002 Ohio State and 2004 USC teams breaking that run. Oklahoma’s title in 2000 was the decade’s first, but the stretch that followed belonged to Nick Saban and Urban Meyer.
The Florida-LSU comparison is where the debate really tightens. Patterson noted that it’s tempting to simply call the SEC the team of the decade, especially with Oklahoma and Texas now part of the league.
He also pointed out that Florida’s résumé stretches from Steve Spurrier’s last SEC championship in 2000 through Tebow’s two-time championship run, capped by a 13-1 season and No. 3 finish in 2009. Add in two national titles, three conference championships and five SEC Championship Game appearances, and Florida gets the edge.
There is some late-decade tilt in the argument. The early 2000s were rougher for the Gators under Ron Zook, while USC, Oklahoma, Texas and Miami were the heavyweights of the era. But Florida’s stronger finish, along with a slight drop from USC and Miami later in the decade, helped separate the Gators from the pack.
Oklahoma and Texas still earned their place in the discussion. The Sooners won the national championship in 2000 and then added five more top-five AP finishes before the decade ended, along with six Big 12 titles. Texas won the conference in 2005 and 2009, both seasons that ended in BCS National Championship Game appearances, and finished in the top five of the final AP poll five times.
Both programs were right there all decade, but just short of the final step. Florida, by Patterson’s view, was the one that climbed highest and stayed there long enough to own the decade.
In Other News...
ESPN Ranking Just Did Emmitt Smith's Florida Legacy No Favors
A recent ESPN jersey-number ranking gave Florida fans a familiar reason to shake their heads, putting the spotlight on No. 22 and the debate that always seems to follow it. The list leaned toward Doug Flutie, but for Gators followers, any conversation about that number quickly circles back to Emmitt Smith, whose college career in Gainesville was built on the kind of rushing dominance that still defines the programs standard-bearers.
Smiths Florida rsum is the sharper football argument, especially when measured against what he did in the SEC and the way he carried the offense year after year. ESPNs choice may have been framed around college production and accolades, but it also invites the obvious question of how a player with Smiths impact at Florida, and the legacy that followed him beyond college, ended up trailing in a ranking built around greatness by jersey number. [Read more 🡒]
SEC Network Is Giving Florida An All-Day Gators Spotlight
Monday is turning into a full-on Florida showcase on SEC Network, with the channel dedicating the day to a marathon of Gators programming from across the past season. The lineup stretches well beyond football, mixing in mens basketball, gymnastics, baseball, volleyball, soccer, softball, lacrosse and track and field, giving fans a chance to revisit the kind of breadth that makes Florida one of the SECs most visible brands.
The schedule is officially set and packed with recognizable moments, including multiple mens basketball wins and a pair of football broadcasts that frame the day from start to finish. SEC Network is clearly leaning into the idea that there was no shortage of Gators content worth replaying, and the bookends alone should be enough to keep Florida fans checking the guide more than once. [Read more 🡒]