Who was the most dominant american college athlete in the last 30 years?

17 comments

1. It’s tough because often the most dominant leave for the pro’s early in their career, as well as the fact that teams don’t play every other team. A dominant player in PAC 12 might not ever play another dominant player in the SEC.

   But off the top of my head, Reggie Bush and Zion seemed to dominate their respective conferences.

2. Tim Tebow oddly comes to mind.

3. Like, in any sport? [Cael Sanderson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cael_Sanderson#NCAA_record) or [Katie Ledecky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Ledecky#Swimming_career).

   Edit: [Jenny Hansen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Hansen) deserves a nod too.

4. In football? Maybe Cam Newton or Tim Tebow

   In other sports, I dunno…

5. This post is going to be interesting for me to read since I feel like I’ve never met anyone who’s actually ever cared about college sports.

6. Probably my UCF bias, but I’ll add Daunte Culpepper to the hat. Basically put UCF on the map. Was amazing to watch opposing players bouncing off of him

7. Ndamukong Suh. I don’t think a defensive tackle has ever been as much of a game changer as he was

8. This might be my Carolina bias but there were very few players who could hang with Tyler Hansbrough. One of the greatest college players of all time imo.

   edit: erin matson should get a shout too, she is one of two players ever to get a cap for the national team at 16, and won 4 national championships in 5 years with UNC

9. Maybe not the most dominant but I’ve never seen anyone replicate what Michael Vick could do on the field. He could get the crowd going from devastated to completely insane.

10. Depends on the sport. For popular team sports, I think the nod has to go to Orlando Pace. Orlando Pace is the only offensive lineman ever to be named Big Ten MVP, the last offensive lineman to place in the top 5 in Heisman voting, the last previous player being over a decade before. One of the most decorated Offensive Linemen of all time.

    The term pancake, now used with regularity when talking about knocking a defender off his feet, was coined and became popular in describing Orlando Pace’s play at Ohio State.

    My other choice is Kellen Moore versus the competition he faced at Boise State

11. Cam Newton. Absolute legend.

12. I’ll throw Ryan Leaf out there. Maybe not the *most* dominant, but he was up there. Heisman finalist during his junior year, and just an absolute beast at WSU. 2nd pick in the 98′ NFL draft, behind Payton Manning- and a lot of people thought he was the better pick between the two. Now he’s mostly forgotten save for the dishonor of being one of the worst draft picks in history.

13. That depends on the sport, but when I think of dominant college athletes the first one that comes to mind is Joe Burrow.

14. College Basketball: Tim Duncan

15. Perhaps an unpopular opinion but what about Johnny Football. Johnny Manziel

16. The specific criteria of since 1993 will be off by a year, but Christian Laettner was a pretty dominant force for his last two years at Duke, although he had a lot of help from his team.

    There’s probably some track and field athlete or rower that none of us have heard of who were even more dominant.

17. Locally, a little later this year I imagine we’re going to have a LOT of kids named Stetson born here in Georgia who were conceived on the night we beat Ohio State (NYE, right at midnight). A few days later we won the championships against TCU.