With the college football season right around the corner, the Associated Press celebrated the organization’s 100th anniversary of choosing an All-American team with quite the twist on Thursday.
The AP announced its All-Time All-American Teams to recognize the greatest college football players in the sport’s history.
Here is a look at the full First- and Second-Teams that includes Tim Tebow over Vince Young as the first-choice quarterback and headline names such as Randy Moss, Deion Sanders, Barry Sanders and Charles Woodson:
There are a number of things that jump out from the teams, which were chosen by a panel of 12 AP sports writers. Players were only eligible if they were named to an AP First-Team at least once during their collegiate careers, and they were only considered for the side of the ball where they were named an All-American.
The Big Ten led the way with seven selections on the First-Team, while the SEC checked in with five.
Ohio State and Pittsburgh also paced the field with three selections each on that First-Team. Notably, one of the Buckeyes was not running back Archie Griffin, who remains the only player in the sport’s history to win the Heisman Trophy twice.
Griffin was a member of the Second-Team behind Barry Sanders and Herschel Walker.
Quarterback might generate the most debate, as Tebow and Young were both national champions who took the college football world by storm during their respective careers. Ultimately, Tebow won two national titles to Young’s one and also captured the Heisman Trophy.
Young finished in second place in the 2005 Heisman voting behind USC’s Reggie Bush, although he earned some revenge with a victory over Bush’s Trojans in the national title game.
While NFL careers were not considered among the criteria when selecting these teams, it is impossible to look over the list and not recognize the star power from players who continued to excel at the sport’s highest level.
Players such as Moss, Larry Fitzgerald, Barry Sanders, Ndamukong Suh, Deion Sanders, Ed Reed and Ronnie Lott stand out and are far from the only ones who succeeded in the NFL as well after such impressive collegiate careers.
The debate will surely continue, but the AP announced its selections Thursday as the official publication of the All-American teams each year.
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