ESPN College Football

Posted by ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg

As a wise editor recently told me, the current decade doesn't end until Dec. 31, so we won't be handling out our all-decade honors just yet. Still, several media folks are getting a jump start on evaluating teams and players from 2000-09. 

CBSSports.com's Dennis Dodd recently ranked all 120 FBS teams according to their performance this decade. Not surprisingly, USC came in at No. 1, followed by Oklahoma and Texas.

Here's where the Big Ten teams stacked up:

• No. 6: Ohio State
• No. 14: Michigan  
• No. 21: Penn State
• No. 23: Wisconsin
• No. 32: Iowa
• No. 39: Purdue
• No. 59: Illinois
• No. 65: Michigan State
• No. 66: Minnesota
• No. 67: Northwestern
• No. 97: Indiana

Definitely a few surprises here, and the overall rankings reflect the Big Ten's decline the past few years.

Both Ohio State and Oklahoma have dominated their leagues and flopped in several big bowl games, but the Sooners are four spots ahead of the Buckeyes. Explain that one to me.

Penn State's performance during the second half of the decade eclipsed the dark days from 2000-04. The Lions are about where they should be.

Wisconsin hasn't matched its dominance from the 1990s, but the Badgers have won nine or more games five times and own just one losing record (2001).  

I was very surprised to see Illinois ranked ahead of Michigan State, Minnesota and Northwestern. Sure, the Illini have turned in two great seasons in 2001 and 2007, but their record the rest of the decade is 23-58. That's brutal and includes four seasons of three wins or fewer. Both Northwestern and Minnesota have been much more consistent than the Illini, and Michigan State's low point is 4-8.