Scrolling through that ESPN list of the best player by every jesey number and I had to stop when I got to the mid-90s. You know what that list is missing? Any sense of what it actually took to wear that number back when we played real football. I remember the 1992 defense, that unit would have eaten half those modern picks for breakfast and asked for seconds. Coach Stallings built teams on toughness, not on highlight reels. You had to earn the right to put on that crimson jersey, let alone a specific number. Now they hand out jersey numbers like participation trophies and ESPN spends months trying to convince us some flashy receiver from 2024 is the best to ever wear number whatever. I guarantee you the guys who actually played in the 70s and 80s are laughing at half these selections. The game was built on grit and hitting, not on what looks good on Instagram. That list is a perfect example of everything wrong with how people talk about college football today.