All-Time Greatest Gators

I ran across this poll of the 50 Greatest Gators of All Time. I found it hard to disagree with it too much (but not impossible ... c'mon, I'm as big a fan of Chris Leak as there is, but he's just not the 5th greatest Gator; he didn't win that National Championship by himself), except for the impossibility of comparing a linebacker from 1970 with a quarterback from 2010. I know, I know, the list is there to generate conversations and arguments, and as I said, I can't argue with it too much.

That doesn't mean I can't come up with my own list. If you know much about me, you know I can't do it the same way as everybody else, so my list creates the Greatest Gator All-Star team. No weaseling allowed, so just eleven players allowed on offense and eleven on defense. And some special team players. And a coach. The addition of an entire second team isn't weasely; I prefer to call it musteline.

I've limited myself to players I have seen play, although Alvarez and Youngblood were allowed in because they just missed the cut, and I read plenty about them at the time, and I'm not about to tell either of them that I left them out.

You will notice a quite a few players from the last year or three. My biggest complaint against "greatest" lists is that recent entries are waaaay too common (see here for an example that will make you weep like a schoolgirl; I know I did), probably because the lister was too lazy to do any decent research. Rest assured that I created the list originally without the recent guys, and only added them in after careful consideration. Such are the drawbacks of supporting a successful team.

I'll admit I can't tell the difference between a guard and a tackle, so I just lumped them in as offensive linemen. I can tell the difference between a cornerback and a safety, but historically they're often listed as just "DB", so I combined that category, too. I most definitely can tell a linebacker from a defensive tackle, and I realize that Sammy Green is listed today as a linebacker, but I saw him play and dammit he played nose guard, so in this list he's a defensive tackle.

	First Team	Second Team
QB	Tim Tebow	Danny Wuerffel
RB	Emmitt Smith	Fred Taylor
RB	Neil Anderson	James Jones
WR	Carlos Alvarez	Wes Chandler
WR	Percy Harvin	Cris Collinsworth
TE	Aron Hernandez	Chris Faulkner
C	Jeff Mitchell	Phil Bromley
OL	Lomas Brown	Crawford Ker
OL	Reggie Greens	David Williams
OL	Burton Lawless	Jason Odom
OL	Jeff Zimmerman	Donnie Young
DE	Jack Youngblood	Alex Brown
DE	Kevin Carter	Jevon Kearse
DT	Brad Culpepper	Sammy Green
DT	Ellis Johnson	Trace Armstrong
LB	Wilber Marshall	Ralph Ortega
LB	Brandon Spikes	Fred Abbott
LB	Scot Brantley	Tim Paulk
DB	Louis Oliver	Will White
DB	Jarvis Williams	Lito Sheppard
DB	Reggie Nelson	Wayne Fields
DB	Joe Haden	Fred Weary
P	Ray Criswell	Shayne Edge
K	David Posey	Bobby Raymond
KR	Brandon James	Jacquez Green
Coach	Steve Spurrier	Urban Meyer