Florida State, Nebraska, and Florida owned college football in the 1990s

At the end of each set of 10 year-by-year recaps, I want to try to take a look back at the decade as a whole. Now that you've seen each year of the 1990s, let's do some compiling.

When my original 10 best programs of each decade piece went up in February, I predictably caught a lot of ire from Nebraska fans for the fact that the Huskers finished second to Florida State in the 1990s. They had three national titles (well, 2.5) to FSU's two, after all! But these ratings don't care about titles; they only care about averages. And on average, FSU was ever so slightly better than the Huskers.

As you see below, there are five FSU teams among the top 13 teams of the 1990s; Nebraska had four of the top 18. All 10 FSU teams ranked in the top 30, while only seven Nebraska teams made the top 50. The 1990, 1998, and 1999 NU teams fell off just enough to give FSU the edge.

That's how these ratings were formed. You can use whatever criteria you want to create a different set of rankings if you so choose.

The most impressive thing about this decade to me, though, was the formation of multiple dynasties. Scholarship limits went into effect in the early part of the 1990s, but instead of opening things up, it seemed to temporarily solidify the ruling class. Indeed, there were 10 FSU and seven Nebraska teams among the top 30 of the decade; there were four Florida teams, as well, leaving only nine spots for the other 100-something programs. That's some incredible dominance from only a few teams. Washington, Penn State, Tennessee, and Ohio State had some awesome teams, and the Miami dynasty of the 1980s hadn't completely faded away yet. But this was a three-team decade.

50 Best Teams of the 1990s

Ranking 1990s FBS programs by average S&P+ percentile rating

Since I've already explained the top of these average rankings, there really aren't any more major surprises beyond maybe Tennessee eking out fourth place over Michigan, Penn State, and Notre Dame. That's not "major," though. The Vols were mostly excellent this decade.

Some other random thoughts:

• SEC: Only two of the top 13, and both were in the East. Florida and Tennessee were great, but nobody else was particularly consistent.
• This was the last decade of football for Fullerton State, LBSU, and Pacific. Not too hard to see why, though power to Arkansas State for sticking it out through some rough times, then beginning to thrive (relatively speaking) in the 2010s.
• Spoiler: Kansas State is not going to grade out 18th in the 1980s. No program redefined itself like Bill Snyder's Wildcats in the 1990s.
• Your top 10 mid-major programs of the 1990s: Marshall (15th, but in just three years), BYU (23rd), Southern Miss (34th), Colorado State (40th), Air Force (42nd), San Diego State (44th), Utah (49th), Wyoming (52nd), Fresno State (56th), and ECU (57th). You can see why the WAC thought it was ready to expand and go crazy.