LSU Football: National publication ranks top 10 champions since 1998

247Sports ranked the top 10 college football champions of the BCS and playoff era this week and LSU football, unsurprisingly, was at the top of their list.

According to 247Sports’ Brad Crawford, the 2019 Tigers are the best college football champions since the 1998 season when the first BCS championship was played.

Here’s what Crawford had to say about the 2019 LSU team that completely dominated college football.

"This LSU team was special and recency bias aside, went through a murderer’s row of elite competition en route to an unbeaten season. Fueled by perhaps the most notable quarterback performance this century, LSU’s magical unbeaten run to a national title during the 2019 campaign featured an unprecedented seven wins over top-10 teams (at the time of game). The run also included record-setting numbers from Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow (60 touchdown passes). The Tigers won 12 games by double digits and led college football in scoring at 48.4 points per game. LSU would go on to tie the NFL draft record for a single school during a seven-round draft with 14 selections, including five first-rounders."

LSU football’s 2019 season was a type of special we’ll never see again

We’ll likely never see another season like what we saw from the 2019 Tigers. The only close games LSU played in 2019 were a pair of games against SEC West rivals Auburn and Alabama.

LSU beat Auburn 23-20 (the only time LSU scored fewer than 30 points in 2019). They beat Bama 46-41.

Looking back, it’s absolutely insane that LSU was ranked No. 2 in the AP Poll as late as December 7 when they played Georgia in the SEC Championship (Ohio State was ranked No. 1 at the time, but LSU overtook them for the top spot after beating Georgia). In retrospect, the Tigers were clearly the best team all the season. Though to be fair, I don’t think anyone realized exactly how special LSU was that season until after they beat the Bulldogs for the SEC Championship.

Interestingly, 247Sports had the 2005 Texas Longhorns ranked as the No. 2 champion since 1998.

I would’ve had the 2001 Miami Hurricanes at No. 2. In fact, that’s the only team that I think could give the 2019 Tigers a run for their money. That Miami team was absolutely loaded with talent (they had 17 future first-round picks).

2001 Miami destroys 2005 Texas. And if 2001 Miami plays 2019 LSU, it would probably end up being the greatest college football game ever played.

By the way, neither of LSU’s other championship teams since 1998 (2003 and 2007) were listed in 247Sports’ top 10.