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Joel Klatt’s All-21st Century Team for College Football

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Joel Klatt’s All-21st Century Team for College Football

Joel Clad builds an all-century college football team from the 2000s, emphasizing elite individual performances and historical impact. On offense, he selects Vince Young as quarterback for his championship-winning leadership and clutch performances, Adrian Peterson as running back for his dominant freshman season and physicality, and Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Crabtree, and Julio Jones as wide receivers for their game-changing plays and consistency. The offensive line features Bryant McKinney, Joe Thomas, David DeCastro, and Quentin Nelson for strength and versatility, with Barrett Jones centering the unit due to his all-around excellence. The athlete role is filled by Percy Harvin, chosen for his two-way dominance and endorsement by Urban Meyer. On defense, Clad selects Terrell Suggs and Will Anderson for their sack records, Aaron Donald and Dante Fowler for their pass-rushing dominance, Luke Keekley and Michael Parsons for their tackle prowess, and Patrick Peterson and Patrick Surtain for their coverage skills, with Ed Reed and Troy Polymalu as safeties for their physicality and historic plays. Clad argues that this team, combining elite skill and historical legacy, could outperform most NFL defenses, reflecting his deep respect for the sport’s greatest players from the past 25 years. The team is presented not just as a statistical compilation, but as a narrative of courage, resilience, and football excellence.

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let's just build our best college football team in the last basically 25 years. How can you be my all century 11 personnel single running back? If you aren't on the field for the most important snap in your team's history. I think we could beat most NFL teams with this with this group. As a former quarterback I'm I'm a little bit nervous right now. Hey what's up everybody welcome into the Joel Clacho. I am Joel Clad. This show is brought to you by graduate by Hilton. We thank them for their support as always. We roll on here in the off season. We hope you are getting all set for college football today. A really fun episode. I am going to have an all century team. That's right since 2000. Let's do it. I think it's going to be awesome. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go in the offensive side into 11 personnel. That means one tied in one back three wide receivers. That's kind of the typical offensive personnel group that we use in college football right now. So that's what I wanted to do here. And then defensively we'll be in nickel. So we're going to have an extra defensive back in there. But here we go. I'm going to bring up candidates. Then I'm going to give you finalists and then ultimately my pick at each position. These are the best players of the century. The all 21st century team is according to the Joel Clad show. Here we go. We start with quarterback. How do you pick between the following guys, even to make a finalist list? I got guys like Baker Mayfield, Cam Newton, Vince Young. You got Joe Burrow, Kyler. You got Lamar Jackson, RG3, Andrew Luck, Mariotta, Lawrence, Dishon, Washington, Matt Liner, Caleb Williams, Jaden Daniels. And here's the five that I finally sat on. And here's the deal. I basically came down to like you kind of had to win a national championship, right? And I know that there were other national champions on this list. But you had to win a national championship. You got to carry your team at some point. You had to play in some cases for multiple national championships. So here's the finalist list. Cam Newton, he was unbelievable. Vince Young, Tim Tebow, Joe Burrow and Matt Liner. Now listen, like I said, winning a title was important to me. And Matt played for three of them. So he makes that list. He also won a Heisman Trophy. Joe Burrow might have had the best single season that we've ever seen from a passer. In 2019 with LSU in route to a Heisman and a national championship. Tim Tebow's career was legendary. We know what type of leader and performer he was. Obviously, I talked about Cam, but the pick for me, guys. And I know this might be a little bit biased because I had to play against him. The pick is Vince Young. If I had one game and I had to get a quarterback from the last 25 years to go and play that game, my all century quarterback is Vince Young. This guy was unbelievable. He went 30 and two as a starting quarterback. That undefeated season and 05 for a national championship was remarkable. There were times when he had to put that that team completely on his back. I think about a game that they were down at halftime at Oklahoma State. Got a quick story about that game. Mac Brown goes into the locker room. It's a small locker room there and still water. And it's halftime and he starts, you know, kind of turning over tables. And he's going to get after the team. Because again, they did not play well. They're ranked number two in the country. They're undefeated. This is kind of their dream season. Then might be going down the drain at this point. And Vince Young interrupts Mac Jones mid tantrum in the halftime locker room and says coach, what are you talking about? I got this turns on music and proceeds to walk out in the third quarter and drive right down the field multiple times they come back and win the game. And we know what he did against USC. USC failed on four down. He goes down. He puts it into the end zone. This guy was incredible. He's my all century quarterback. I know there might be some debate. But I don't think I'm going to get a ton of pushback about that. Vince Young, I mean, come on again, one game. You want one game? You've got to win it. Who's your quarterback from the last 25 years? I think I'm taking Vince. All right, we move on to the running backs. This one is ridiculously tough. Bush, Jonathan Taylor, Christian McCaffrey, AP, Saquon, Derek Henry, Mark Ingram, Darren McFadden, Maurice Claret, Zeke, Dunnell, Pumphrey from San Diego State, Frank Gore, Willis McGahey, Darren Sprouls, Monty Ball. And yet I've got to, I've got to pick one of these guys. This is where I did not want to be an 11 personnel. And so I thought, you know what? Let's get down to three. And my three finalists are Reggie Bush, Christian McCaffrey and Adrian Peterson. And again, I listen, I get it. Some of you might be thinking to yourself, what in the world? How is Derek Henry not on that list? Henry won a Heisman over McCaffrey. Yeah, but McCaffrey was so valuable. And he did things that Derek couldn't do. And his seasons at Stanford were remarkable, remarkable. Bush and Peterson speak for themselves. And so here's what's easy is to get it down to two. Even off of that big list, I got down to two really fast. Reggie Bush and Adrian Peterson. I'm a huge Reggie Bush guy. He was electric. He changed the game in so many ways. So many ways played against Adrian Peterson. His true freshman year was one of the great seasons we've ever seen from a running back. He led the country and carries as a true freshman and ran for 1900 yards. Remarkable, absolutely remarkable stuff. And yet, Reggie Bush wasn't on the field on fourth down against Texas to go for a 3P. It's like, how can how can you be my all century 11 personnel single running back? If you weren't on the field, for the most important snap in your team's history. And it's not his fault. You can make a strong argument like what is Pete Carroll doing? What is he doing? Why is the Reggie not on the field? They went with Lindell White with that carry. They got stopped. Vince goes down the field and scores. So for that reason, I'm going to go with Adrian Peterson. And it's very similar to my theory about Vince Young. If you had one game, one game, you got to you have a guy back there. You need him to tote the rock, you know, 20, 25 times. So you're taken AP. This dude ran as angry and as physical as anyone that we've ever seen. AP was a do it all guy from day one as a true freshman. Now, Reggie had that remarkable season. But AP came in and like I said, led the country and carries. As a true freshman, 339 carries. He was third that year in college football run on the football with 1900 yards. 26 carries per game. He averaged for his career 130 yards per game. That's remarkable. I'm it's devastating that he had that foot injury. He had a collarbone injury. He kind of slowed him down after that true freshman year. But man, I have one game and I'm going to be an 11 personnel. And I need that defense to respect the run. I'm taking number 28 boomer sooner. Adrian Peterson right there in the backfield with Vince Young. Can you imagine them running zone read back in the day? Oh my goodness. So AP is my all century running back. Why do receivers? I'm going to take three. So this becomes a lot easier. How about this list of candidates? You've got Fitzgerald, Davante Smith, Justin Blackman, Crab Tree, Calvin Johnson, Julio Jones, Amari Cooper, Marvin Harrison, Jamar Chase, Jeremiah Smith. I mean, the list can be even longer than that. But here are my finalists. My five finalists for three spots are Larry Fitzgerald at Pit. Davante Smith, the Heisman Trophy winner at Alabama. Michael Crab Tree, two time bullet in a cough award winner. Julio Jones, just an absolute freak and Jeremiah Smith. Now, I know some people might want Calvin Johnson on this list. But I think I think I hit the nail on the head with this one. I mean, you've got great individual seasons. You've got great careers. You've got the physical presence of a guy like Julio Jones. And I can take three of these guys. So here's where we're going to land. Here are my three picks for the all-century team. Larry Fitzgerald at Pit, Michael Crab Tree at Texas Tech, and Julio Jones at Alabama. I think that's where I'm going and who's telling me otherwise. I can put Larry in the slot. Crab Tree was incredible. Julio is just an absolute boss on the outside. Does anyone remember who Larry Fitzgerald's quarterback was? Honestly, leave a comment down below right now. And don't listen to what I'm about to say. Rod Rutherford. Anyone remember that name? I don't. I work in the sport. Rod Rutherford, I had to look that up and I'm like, wait a second. You mean to tell me that he was Larry Fitzgerald with Rod Rutherford at Pit? I mean, that's a no-brainer. That was my first one. If I had to take one, it would be Larry Fitzgerald. Then you think about Crab Tree. Crab Tree was insane. He had one of the great seasons in all of college football history. His performance against Texas in that game when both of those teams were undefeated was insane. The route out on the right side, if you're watching YouTube, you're seeing it right now, right down the right side line. He is double covered. He snatches it out of the air, breaks the tackle, runs in. All hell breaks, Luke Luson Lubbock. He was a triple crown winner of that year. By the way, he was just a red shirt freshman. Red shirt freshman. Back in the day, that was your first year playing. You know, now you get, I don't even know what you get. You get like four games and you get all this other extra time. Crab Tree didn't have that. The catch against Texas puts him on the list. Third grade of season in college football history, triple crown winner. And then Julio Jones. I know that the numbers might not support that. Against some of the other candidates, in particular, like a Devonte Smith, or even what Jeremiah Smith has done over the last couple of years in his first two. in college football. But he was doing this for a team that was primarily run oriented in an era in which the SEC was absolutely loaded. I mean, a lot of the defensive backs that I'm going to talk about later in this show were from the SEC in this era and he was an absolute boss. I don't think I can go wrong with Julio Jones out there. My three wide receiver. So I got Vince Young throwing the football to Larry Fitzgerald Michael Crabtree and Julio Jones with AP in the backfield. I mean, who's stopping that? Who's stopping that? I think we could beat most NFL teams with this, with this group. I love, I love that list, man. Give me those three guys. Oh, we're going to be doing some serious damage. All right, tied in. We get one tied in. This one was the easiest pick by a wide margin, even though there's some good players. I know I understand that. Bauer's pits, Michael Mayor Tyler Warren, Mark Andrews, Jeremy Shockey, Grunk, Dallas Clark. All right, there's some really good tight ends. I think it's pretty easy to get down to a finalist list of three. I'm taking one of these three Kyle Pits, Brock Bowers and Tyler Warren. I think we forget how dominant Tyler Warren was just a couple of years ago. He was everything to that Penn State team that ended up going to the national semi-final. Bauer's, of course, won the Mackie twice. He was, I think the best tight end I've ever seen and Pits was an animal at Florida. But again, this pick was very easy for me. If I'm taking one tied in, you, you only going to give me one, give me Brock Bowers, two-time national champ, two-time Mackie award winner. And by the way, if he doesn't make a couple of insane plays, they don't win the second national championship because they don't beat Ohio State in that semi-final. People forget what he was able to do. There was, I believe it was a, it was a fourth down play. I'm almost certain it was a fourth down play. And he's on the sideline, reaching for the pylon. Insane, insane player, insane speed, great hands. Brock Bowers, I think that's an easy selection. He's going to be my tight end in 11 personnel. Now we get up front to the big guys, the big uglies, offensive tackle. Taking a couple of these guys. Finalist for me, Bryant McKinney, Miami, Joe Thomas at Wisconsin, Penais Sewell at Oregon, Jake Long, Michigan and Tristan Worfs at Iowa. I mean, that's a damn good list, guys. I mean, let's go. If I can play behind that offensive line, you're going to stick Vince Young and Adrian Peterson behind this offensive line. My pick though, and again, this was the second easiest pick for me after Brock Bowers is Bryant McKinney and Joe Thomas. I mean, these guys, Bryant McKinney was an absolute animal. McKinney was a monster in that 2001 season for Miami. He's the last offensive lineman to finish in the top 10 in Heisman Voting, by the way. Yes, that absolutely happened. Joe Thomas, he won the outland for the badgers. I tried not to think of NFL careers, but man, isn't it difficult, right? Like you kind of have to, right? At some point, Joe Thomas was incredible. So Joe Thomas and Bryant McKinney are my bookend tackles on the offensive line for my all century team guards. Here are the finalists at guard. Quentin Nelson at Notre Dame, Zach Martin, Notre Dame, Chance Warmac at Alabama and David DeCastro at Stanford. I think people forget about David DeCastro. And you know what? I'm not forgetting. Do we remember how dominant that Stanford team was running the football using all those gap schemes. Gap schemes mean you're blocking down on one side pulling the guard. This decastro was incredible. He's one of my guards. David DeCastro at Stanford. He was a huge reason why Harbob became Harbob at Stanford. Remember Toby Gerhardt? Remember these guys? Men, they could run it. They could absolutely run the football. And they did not care how many people you put in the defensive front seven to Castro is a big reason why. And then my second one, this one was a little bit more difficult. I wanted to go Chance Warmac. I ended up going Quentin Nelson here from Notre Dame two time all American at Notre Dame. I just don't think you can go wrong with Quentin Nelson and David DeCastro in at your guards. Now I've got Bryant McKinney and Joe Thomas. I've got Quentin Nelson and David DeCastro. Yeah, like, let's go. We're going to run the rock. And by the way, we're throwing it to those three wide receivers. That's pretty darn good. At center, my finalists at center are Barrett Jones at Bama. Tyler Linderbaum at Iowa and Landon Dickerson, the center from the 2020 Bama team. I know that he played other positions as well. But those are my three finalists. My pick is Barrett Jones. Barrett Jones did everything for those Bama teams in the early 2010s. Start at guard, tackle center, won the Outland left tackle in 2011. Then won the Remington at center in 2012. His versatility was insane. Barrett Jones is my center. He's a smart player. I want him in there. He can orchestrate everything in between all of those monsters next to him. I love my offensive line. And again, leave a comment down below. What do you think of this offense so far? Not done yet, not done yet, because, you know, why on all of these, you know, all conference teams and everything like that, we've got to have athletes. So I'm going to have a position here for athletes. My candidates at athlete, Percy Harvin, DeAnthony Thomas, insane. Tabon Austin, Adori Jackson, Jibril Peppers, Darren Sprouls, Curtis Samuel, Travis Hunter. But my three finalists are going to be Percy, Hunter and Austin. I think we forget that Tabon Austin switched in the middle of the week from wide receiver to running back, then played Oklahoma against Mike Stoops defense, Bob Stoops is the head coach and ran for over 300 yards. I called that game. Can't get it out of my head. He's for sure a finalist. And we're talking about athlete. I don't know if there's a better athlete in the history of college football in terms of a two way star than Travis Hunter. But my pick is going to be Percy. Here's the deal. Sometimes you just got to trust the smart people in the room. And Urban Meyer won multiple national championships as a head coach. She's widely considered one of the great head coaches that we've had in the history of the sport. And I agree with that. Now I get the pleasure of working with Urban and Urban has said to me many times point blank. Percy Harvin was the best football player he ever coached. Guess what? That's good enough for me. When Urban says that, I need him on my team and Percy Harvin is going to be my athlete. So now we can get into a lot of different personnel groups. We can give it to Percy on the jet sweep. Nobody is stopping that offense. Nobody. Tevon Austin was fantastic. But Percy was incredible. Only player this century to average 50 rushing yards and 50 receiving yards for his career. Yeah. Give me that guy. Absolutely. My offense is unreal is unreal. I don't know if you can pick anybody else. I really don't play. I'm sure somebody's mad. I'm sure of it. Please leave a comment down below. What do you think of the offense for the all-century team? Now we move on to defense. All right. I'm going to take four defensive linemen. I'm going to break this up into two edge players and I'm going to take two tackles. Candidates at edge are insane. Maybe the toughest position group outside or running back to select on the all-century team. You've got guys like Terrell Suggs, David Pollock, Chase Young, Julius Peppers, Dwight Freeni, Khalil Mack, Jadevian Clowney, Miles Garrett, Joey and Nick Bosa, Aiden Hutchinson. Like how do you pick a finalist group? Much less two guys on the edge. Here's my finalists. I know you're going to disagree with some of these. Here's my finalists. My five finalists, two of them getting selected. Terrell Suggs at Arizona State, Jadevian Clowney at South Carolina, Miles Garrett at Texas A&M, Aiden Hutchinson at Michigan, and Will Anderson at Alabama. Man, these dudes are incredible. I know that Clowney has the iconic hit against Michigan. Garrett, as we all know now, is an absolute freak. Hutchinson brought Michigan back, beat that Ohio state team, dominated Ohio State in that game. He had three sacks. I think he had something like 15 pressures in that game if I'm not mistaken. But here are my picks. Terrell Suggs at Arizona State Will Anderson at Alabama. Yes, absolutely. Give me these two guys. Does anybody remember Terrell Suggs season in 2002? Anybody? Animal, 24 sacks, 31 tackles for loss, both FBS records. The tackle for loss mark is now held by the other guy, by the way, Will Anderson. Suggs had four games with at least three sacks that year. And the crazy game was against Washington, four and a half sacks, six and a half tackles for loss. The dude was insane. He was fast. He was strong. He was everything for that son devil defense. And then Will Anderson. I mean, when Nick Saban says that he's kind of the alpha of all the alphas that he's had at Alabama, then I listen, 34 and a half sacks, 62 tackles for loss in three seasons in the SEC in that era of the SEC when he was at Bama. He had an insane sophomore year, 17 and a half sacks, 34 and a half tackles for loss. That now is the FBS record passing Terrell Suggs. He had to be a He had to be the pick here on the edge. Sugs and Anderson, my edge defenders on the Allsen Tree team. Gosh, I love those guys. This is even better than when I was working on this. I'm even, I'm, I gotta tell ya, as a former quarterback, I'm a little bit nervous right now, a bit nervous. All right, defensive tackles, this list is also insane. Guys, college football's the best. And Dominic and Sue, Aaron Donald, Vince Wolforck, Jonathan Allen, Quinn and Williams, Jalen Carter, Tommy Harris, Glenn Dorsey, Mason Graham, sneaky, loaded, loaded group. My finalist though are these five I'm going to take two. And Dominic and Sue, Aaron Donald, Vince Wolforck, Tommy Harris, and Glenn Dorsey. So I think people forget how dominant Tommy, Tommy Harris was, I had to play against him, but that's not gonna carry the day here. Vince Wolforck was an animal, animal. I mean, he was and say that, that defense for Miami was one of the great defenses though. We've ever seen in college football history, and then Glenn Dorsey dominated the line of scrimmage. And again, the era of the SEC that was just ripe with talent. All the best players in the country were down on the SEC at the time. And Glenn Dorsey owned the line of scrimmage. But my picks, if I had two tackles and I had that list, it's in Dominic and Sue and Aaron Donald, Sue in 2009, shall I say, was insane. He finished fourth in the Heisman voting. He had 12 sacks and 20 and a half TFLs. As a tackle, I like, as dominant as any player I've ever seen. I had, I had just been kind of given the opportunity to start calling college football games. I remember I called an endowment in Sue game. They played at what was it? Kansas State against Josh Freeman. Anyone remember that? And I just walked away from that game thinking to myself. I've never seen anything like that. Never his power was head and shoulders above everybody else on the field. He almost beat that Texas team that wound up winning that big 12 championship game and going and playing Alabama for the national title. I can't believe Colt McCoy didn't get hurt against the Dominican. Sue ended up getting hurt against Bama and then Aaron Donald holds the FBS career record for TFLs was 66 as a tackle. Like, come on. And we know what he was in the NFL, but he was that at pit. He was that at pit. I tell you, man, these two guys, that defense, I think the only offense ever created that could move the ball on this defense is the offense that I just created in the all century team. This all century team is so fun. I love it. I absolutely love it. I love talking about these older players. All right, linebackers. I'm going to take two. Here's some some of the candidates. Got guys like Derek Johnson. He was incredible. Luke Keekley. James Laranitas. Mentai Taeow. Patrick Willis. AJ Hawk. Rokwan Smith. Michael Parsons. Right? Like killers. Great linebackers. Absolutely great linebackers. Here's my finalists. So here are my five. Luke Keekley at Boston College. Michael Parsons at Penn State. Mentai Taeow at Notre Dame. Derek Johnson at Texas and Rokwan Smith at Georgia. How do you take two of those? I don't really know. At this point, you just have to go with your gut. And I'm thinking to myself. Luke Keekley and Michael Parsons. I think I've got to take those two guys. Keekley might be the smartest linebacker in history. Michael Parsons might be the greatest Swiss army knife at middle linebacker that we've ever seen. Keekley holds the FBS record for tackles per game in a single season with 15.9 almost 16 tackles. It's insane. He did that in 2011. And by the way, he leads the FBS in terms of career tackles per game with 14. He had over 180 tackles in each of his last two seasons. Always around the football. Always. He's going to get everyone lined up. Smartest guy in the field. And then you go to Parsons. I know he only played two seasons at Penn State. He sat out the COVID year. But he was a force freshman, all American. Then a full all American as a sophomore. And he was playing as a normal linebacker in those days. And he was still dominant. This is one of those. I understand if you have a problem with this. I can't get the current Micah out of my head. Was he this at Penn State? No, they didn't use him like they are now using him in the NFL. And I totally understand that. If you want to come to me and say, no, no, no, no, Rokwan Smith deserves to be on this list. I don't have a huge argument against that. Other than it's my comparisons. I think you've got to take my comparisons. And so I'm going to do that. And Parsons is there with Keekley in the middle of my defense. Corners do this list. You start sitting down and thinking about the corners that we've had since 2000. Patrick Peterson. Morris Clayborn. Travis Hunter. Patrick Sir Tane. Sir Tane, if you want to. Derek Stingley. Daryl Revis. Joe Hayden. Jalen Ramsey. Sosgardner. D Milner. Terrence Newman. What? What? Like dudes. Dudes on the outside. Here's my list of five. Here's my finalists. My finalists are going to be Patrick Peterson at LSU. Terrence Newman. At Kansas State. Unreal. Fastest player I've ever seen on the field. Jalen Ramsey, Florida State. Patrick Sir Tane at Alabama and Morris Clayborn from LSU. Only can take two though. This is. This is a tough one. This is incredibly tough. Here's why I'm going to go with this. Let's start with this. I'm going to take Patrick Peterson right now. He's in. He was going up against guys like AJ Green and Julio Jones and others in that SEC era. He won the Thorpe and the Bitnarek. Patrick Peterson is one of my guys. Okay, so he's in. Now you've got to decide on the other guys and you look at that and you're like, okay. Nick Saban was a secondary coach. This guy was probably one of the best. If not the best that played for Nick Saban, I've got to take Patrick Sir Tane. Don't I? I think I do. I do. 38 straight starts at Bama. He was an all-American lockdown guy. Right now he's the best corner in the national football league. So I'm going to go with Sir Tane there on the outside. So now I've got Peterson and Sir Tane. I'm loving my secondary. Absolutely loving my secondary. All right, now we go with Nickelback. Hybrid type players, okay? Because I didn't get some of these guys in the mix. You know, so guys that I didn't mention and I'm not going to mention even in the safety category and I wanted to create this Nickelback. So here are my finalists at Nickelback. To Ryan Matthew, honey Badger, Tyron Matthew, Caleb Downs and Mika Fitzpatrick. Who's saying no to that? I can only take one though. I can only take one. Honey Badger was a ball-hawk, making plays, forced a ton of fumbles. Downs the smartest player that I've ever covered. Fitzpatrick, Swiss Army knife. Who won the Beneric and the Thorpe Award for Nick Saban. Wanted to take him, but I've got to take the honey Badger. The honey Badger was just cut from a different cloth. He had an aura about him when he was out on the field. He was like the college version of Ed Reed. Like he was he was all over the place. And quarterbacks had to be aware of him. Offensive coordinators had to be aware of him. So honey Badgers got to be on my defense. I can't have a defense for an all-century team and not take honey Badger. I you're just waiting for him to do something, right? He was outstanding. All right. Now the safeties. This list is insane. How about guys like Ed Reed, Roy Williams, Sean Taylor, Eric Barry, Troy Polymalu, Kyle Hamilton, Durwin James. I mean, there have been some absolute monsters. Here are my finalists. So here are my five finalists. I'm taking two. Sean Taylor, Miami, Troy Polymalu, USC, the rolling ball of butcher knives. Ed Reed, of course, he's in there. Roy Williams and Eric Barry. That finalist list is wild, wild. Now I do find it a little interesting. All of those guys played in the pre-targeting era. Right? Like, don't you love the old safeties, the physical old safeties that could just absolutely knock people's heads off? I love that. Sean Taylor was six, three, two hundred and twenty pounds. Unreal, athlete, unreal. Roy Williams won a national championship in 2000. He won the Nagersky and the Thorpe Award the next year. The iconic Superman play against Texas. I think that was Chris Sims in there. Eric Barry had 14 interceptions in his career at Tennessee. He was, he was so good. But guys, guys. It's Ed Reed and Troy Polymalu, right? Like, I know you can make an argument for Sean Taylor. I get it, I get it. But Troy Polymalu and Ed Reed, as your safeties, with honey badger as your nickel. No one's scoring against this team. Reed, two-time All-American led Miami to that '01 title. He was insane. Polymalu, I got to see him playing college before anyone ever knew who Polymalu was before he had the hair or anything like that. His, their breakout game in pizza, I believe it was Pete's second year. Carson would go on to win the Heisman trophy. They came to Colorado. I was a true freshman. This was like the second game that I ever suited up for in college football. And USC ended up beating us in Folsom Field. And there was this guy at safety. And he was making every tackle. Number 43. And we kept like stopping the tape and backing it up and I was like, who is this guy? And they were like, I don't know. We can't pronounce his name. He ends up being Troy Palomolo. Insane player and Ed Reed. Ed Reed was Ed Reed. You can't have an old century team without Ed Reed. You just can't. And then Palomolo is is on that team as well. There it is. There's the all century team. I hope you enjoy it. I don't know if you're going to budge me off a lot of those picks. I just don't. I just don't. You can try. I would really appreciate it. You can also subscribe to the program on YouTube. That would be awesome. If you're just listening to this, wherever you get your podcasts, you can rate or view us. That always helps us. And then follow us on social media. We are wherever you like to social media. Follow us at Joel Platt Show. That's the all century team. I'd love to hear the debate until next Monday. Enjoy your weekend.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Joel Clad constructs an all-century college football team (since 2000) using 11-personnel offense (one QB, one RB, three WRs) and nickel defense (extra defensive back).
  2. His quarterback pick is Vince Young, citing his 2005 undefeated season, championship win, and game-saving performance against Oklahoma State and USC.
  3. For running back, Adrian Peterson is selected over Reggie Bush due to his dominance as a true freshman (1900 yards, 339 carries), physicality, and consistency, despite Bush’s record-setting season.
  4. Wide receivers
  5. Tight end
  6. Offensive line
  7. Center
  8. Athlete
  9. Defense
  10. The team is presented as a high-impact, balanced unit capable of defeating most NFL teams due to its blend of elite individual talent and historical significance.

Summary:

Joel Clad builds an all-century college football team from the 2000s, emphasizing elite individual performances and historical impact. On offense, he selects Vince Young as quarterback for his championship-winning leadership and clutch performances, Adrian Peterson as running back for his dominant freshman season and physicality, and Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Crabtree, and Julio Jones as wide receivers for their game-changing plays and consistency. The offensive line features Bryant McKinney, Joe Thomas, David DeCastro, and Quentin Nelson for strength and versatility, with Barrett Jones centering the unit due to his all-around excellence.

The athlete role is filled by Percy Harvin, chosen for his two-way dominance and endorsement by Urban Meyer. On defense, Clad selects Terrell Suggs and Will Anderson for their sack records, Aaron Donald and Dante Fowler for their pass-rushing dominance, Luke Keekley and Michael Parsons for their tackle prowess, and Patrick Peterson and Patrick Surtain for their coverage skills, with Ed Reed and Troy Polymalu as safeties for their physicality and historic plays. Clad argues that this team, combining elite skill and historical legacy, could outperform most NFL defenses, reflecting his deep respect for the sport’s greatest players from the past 25 years.

The team is presented not just as a statistical compilation, but as a narrative of courage, resilience, and football excellence.

FAQs

Joel Clad selects Vince Young as his all-century quarterback. He praises Young's leadership, performance, and ability to carry a team in critical games, including his undefeated season and championship win over Oklahoma State.

Clad chooses Adrian Peterson because he values a running back who consistently carried the ball in high-pressure situations. Peterson had 339 carries and 1900 yards as a true freshman, and his durability and physicality made him ideal for an 11-personnel offense.

Joel Clad picks Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Crabtree, and Julio Jones. He highlights their individual performances, including Crabtree's game against Texas as a redshirt freshman and Jones' dominance in a run-heavy SEC era.

Brock Bowers is selected for his two national championships and two MAC awards, including a crucial fourth-down play against Ohio State that helped secure the title. Clad emphasizes his speed, hands, and game-changing plays.

He selects Terrell Suggs and Will Anderson. Suggs had 24 sacks and 31 tackles for loss in 2002, while Anderson recorded 34.5 sacks and 62 TFLs in three seasons at Alabama, making him a top-tier edge defender.

Joel Clad picks Luke Keelley and Michael Parsons. Keelley holds the FBS record for tackles per game, while Parsons was a dominant force as a freshman and sophomore at Penn State, showcasing elite versatility.

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