The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - Joel Klatt’s All-21st Century Team for College Football

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

Fox Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt picks the best players since 2000 to make his All-21st Century team in College Football. How do you choose between QB’s like Joe Burrow,  Cam Newton, Vince Young, Tim Tebow and others? That’s the challenge Klatt takes on to build out his team. He debates between all-time great Running Backs like Christian McCaffery, Derrick Henry, Adrian Peterson and Reggie Bush but only one can be selected.  On the defensive side of the ball, it doesn’t get any easier deciding between players like Myles Garrett,  Will Anderson Jr and an Edge rusher from the early 2000’s that put up one of the greatest seasons we’ve ever seen. Secondary players like Ed Reed and Tyrann Mathieu battle it out with more recent players like Caleb Downs and Patrick Surtain. Let the debates begin! Chapters 🏈 0:00-1:24 Klatt’s all century CFB team  1:25-3:57 Quarterback 3:58-7:10 Running back 7:11-10:39 Wide receiver  10:40-11:58 Tight end  11:59-13:07 Offensive tackle 13:08-14:28 Offensive guard  14:29-15:24 Center 15:25-17:21 Athlete 17:22-20:17 Edge 20:18-22:57 Defensive tackle 22:58-25:03 Linebacker 25:04-26:42 Cornerback  26:43-27:53 Nickelback 27:54-30:57 Safety Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The excitement of the FIFA World Cup is now streaming live on Fox One, the official English streaming platform to catch every unforgettable moment. Fox One brings the action straight to your screen so you never miss a goal. Download Fox One and experience the FIFA World Cup live. 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 a little bit nervous right now. Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome into the Joel Clatt Show. I am Joel Clat. This show is brought to you by graduate by Hilton. We thank them for their support. As always, we roll on here in the offseason. 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 just build our best college football team in the last basically 25 years. 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 will be a 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 Clat 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, Deshaun Watson, 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 it 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 the 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 Burrell might have had the best single season that we've ever seen from a passer in 2019 with LSU en 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 2 as a starting quarterback. That undefeated season in 05 for a national championship was remarkable. There were times when he had to put 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. Mack Brown goes into the locker room. It's a small locker room there in Stillwater. 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 Mack 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 as they come back and win the game. And we know what he did against USC. USC failed on fourth 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, Sequin, Derek Henry, Mark Ingram, Darren McFadden, Maurice Claret, Zeke, Donnell Pumfrey from San Diego State, Frank Gore, Willis McGahey, Darren Sproulz, 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 in 11 personnel. And so I thought, you know what, let's get down to three. Let's get down to three. And my three finalists are Reggie Bush,

Christian McCaffrey, and Adrian Peterson. And again, 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 1,900 yards. Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable stuff. And yet, Reggie Bush wasn't on the field on fourth down against Texas to go for a three-peat. It's like, 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 a 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 have a guy, back there, you need him to tote the rock you know 20, 25 times. Who you're taking? 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, running the football with 19, yards. 26 carries per game. He averaged for his career 130 yards per game. That's remarkable. It's devastating that he had that foot injury, he had a collarbone injury, 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 Reed back in the day?

Oh, my goodness. So AP is my all century running back. Wide receivers, I'm going to take three, so this becomes a lot easier. How about this list of candidates? You've got Fitzgerald, Devante Smith, Justin Blackman, Crabtree, Calvin Johnson, Julio Jones, Amory 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 Pitt, Devante Smith, the Heisman

trophy winner at Alabama, Michael Crabtree, two-time Bolitnikoff 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 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 Pitt, Michael Crabtree 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. Crabtree 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 Pitt? 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'd think about Crabtree. Crabtree 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 sideline. He is double covered. He snatches it out of the air, breaks the tackle, runs in, all hell breaks loose in Lubbock.

Crabtree was insane. He was a triple crown winner that year. By the way, he was just a redshirt freshman. Redshirt 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. Crabtree didn't have that. The catch against Texas puts him on the list, third greatest 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 Devante 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 group. I love that list, man. Give me those three guys. we're going to be doing some serious damage. All right, tight end. We get one tied end. This one was the easiest pick by a wide margin,

even though there's some good players. I understand that. Bowers Pitts, Michael Mayor, Tyler Warren, Mark Andrews, Jeremy Shockey, Gronk, Dallas Clark. 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 Pitts, Brock Bowers, and Tyler Warren.

and 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 semifinal. Bowers, of course, won the Mackey twice. He was, I think, the best tight end I've ever seen. And Pitts was an animal at Florida. But again, this pick was very easy for me. If I'm taking one tight end, you're only going to give me one. Give me Brock Bowers.

Two-time National Champ, two-time Mackey 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 semifinal. People forget what he was able to do. There was, I believe 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. Finalists for me, Brian McKinney at Miami, Joe Thomas at Wisconsin, Penae Sewell at Oregon, Jake Long at Michigan, and Tristan Worf's 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, Brian 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 in 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, meaning you're blocking down on one side, pulling a guard. DeCastro was incredible. He's one of my guards. David DeCastro at Stanford. He was a huge reason why Harbaugh became Harbaugh at Stanford. Remember Toby Gerhard?

You remember these guys? Man, 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. DeCastro was 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 in Notre Dame. I just don't think you can go wrong with Quentin Nelson and David DeCastro and at your guards. Now I've got Brian 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 into 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,

started at Guard, tackle, center, won the Outland at 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, Taborne Austin, Adori Jackson, Jabro Peppers, Darren Sproles, Curtis Samuel, Travis Hunter. But my three finalists are going to be Percy, Hunter, and Austin. I think we forget that Tavon Austin switched in the middle of the week from wide receiver to running back. then played Oklahoma against Mike Stoop's 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 when you'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. He'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 them 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. Tavon Austin was fantastic. but Percy was incredible.

Only player this century to average 50 rushing yards and 50 receiving yards for his career. Yeah. Jimmy, that guy. Absolutely. My offense is unreal. Is unreal. I don't know if you can pick anybody else.

I really don't. 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 of running back to select on the All-Centry team. You've got guys like Terrell Suggs, David Pollock, Chase Young, Julius Peppers, Dwight Freeney, Kalee Mack,

Jedavian Clownie, Miles Garrett, Joey and Nick Bosa, Aden 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 finalist. My five finalists, two of them getting selected.

Terrell Suggs at Arizona State, Judevian Clowny at South Carolina, Miles Garrett at Texas A&M, Aden Hutchinson at Michigan, and Will Anderson at Alabama. man these dudes are incredible. I know that Clowny 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 sun devil defense. And then Will Anderson. I mean, when Nick Sabin 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. See, 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 the pick here on the edge.

Suggs and Anderson, my edge defenders on the all-century team. Gosh, I love those guys. This is even better than when I was working on this. I'm even, I'm, I got to tell you, 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. Indomacan Sue, Aaron Donald, Vince Wolfork, 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. Indomac and Sue, Aaron Donald, Vince Wolfork, Tommy Harris, and Glenn Dorsey. So I think people forget how dominant Tommy Harris was. I had to play against him, but that's not going to carry the day here. Vince Wolfork was an animal, animal.

I mean, he was, and said that defense from Miami was one of the great defenses that 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 Domic 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'm like as dominant as any player I've ever seen. I had just been kind of given the opportunity to start calling college football games. I remember I called an Endowment Sue game. They played at what was it, Kansas State against Josh Freeman. Anyone want to 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 Colton McCoy didn't get hurt against Indomacan Su. Ended up getting hurt against Bama. And then Aaron Donald holds the FBS career record for TFLs with 66. as a tackle.

Like, come on. And we know what he was in the NFL, but he was that at Pitt. He was that at pit. I'd 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-Centry team. This All-Centry 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 are some of the candidates. Got guys like Derek Johnson. he was incredible. Luke Keeckley, James Laronitis, Manti Tao, Patrick Willis, A.J. Hawk, Roquan Smith, Michael Parsons, right? Like killers, great linebackers. Absolutely great linebackers.

Here's my finalist, though. Here are my five. I'm going to take two. Luke Keeckley at Boston College. Michael Parsons at Penn State. Manti Tao at Notre Dame. Derek Johnson at Texas and Roquan 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 Kikley and Micah Parsons. I think I've got to take those two guys. Kikley might be the smartest linebacker in history. Micah Parsons might be the greatest Swiss Army knife at middle linebacker that we've ever seen. Kikley 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 on 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, Roquan Smith deserves to be on this list, I don't have a huge argument against that other than it's Micah Parsons. I think you've got to take Micah Parsons, and so I'm going to do that. And Parsons is there with Keekley in the middle of

my defense. Corners. Dude, this list, you start sitting down and thinking about the corners that we've had since 2000. Patrick Peterson, Morris Claiborne, Travis Hunter, Patrick Sertane, Sartan, if you want to, Derek Stingley, D. Revis, Joe Hayden, Jalen Ramsey, Soss Gardner, D. Milner, Terrence Newman. What? What? Like, dudes. Dudes on the outside. Here's, my list of five. Here's my finalists I'm going to take two. 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 Sertan at Alabama and Morris Claiborne from LSU. Only can take two, though. 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 Bednaric. 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 Sabin 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 Sertan, 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 sartan there on the outside so now i've got peterson and sartan i'm loving my secondary absolutely loving my secondary all right now we go with nickel back

hybrid type players okay because i didn't get some of these guys in the mix you know um 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 nickel back so here are my finalists at nickelback uh to run 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 Benerick and the Thorpe Award for Nick Sabin, wanted to take him, but I've got to take the Honey Badger. The Honey Badger was just cut from a different claw. 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 Badger's got to be on my defense. I can't have a defense for an all century team and not take Honey Badger. 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 Palomalu, Kyle Hamill, Derwin James. I mean, there have been some absolute monsters. Here are my finalists, though. Here are my five finalists. I'm taking two. Sean Taylor, Miami. Troy Palomalu,

USC, the rolling ball of butcher knives. Ed Reed, of course, he's in there. Roy Williams and Eric Berry. 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 loved that. Sean Taylor was 6-3, 220 pounds. Unreal, athlete, unreal. Roy Williams won a national championship in 2000. He won the Nogerski 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 so good. But guys, guys, it's Ed Reed and Troy Palomalan. Right? I know you can make an argument for Sean Taylor. I get it. I get it. But Troy Palomalo and Ed Reed as your safeties

with Honey Badger as your nickel. No one's scoring. this team. Reed two-time All-American, led Miami to that 0-1 title. He was insane. Palomalo. I got to see him playing college before anyone ever knew who Palomalu was before he had the hair or anything like that. Their breakout game in Pete's, 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 Palomalu insane player and Ed Reed Ed Reed was Ed Reed you can't have an All Century team without Ed Reed you just can't and then Palomalo 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. Please leave a comment down below. 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 podcast, you can rate and review us. That always helps us. And then follow us on social media. We are wherever you like to social media. You can 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. Thank you.