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The great thing about college football is there are more than a handful of traditionally strong programs across the nation.
It provides the opportunity to have a few big time powers struggle, as they look to regain their supremacy, however, this leaves more than a few teams ready and able to pick up their slack.
Every big time program goes through their own peaks and valley's. Right now Oklahoma, Ohio State, Texas, Florida, and Southern California, are a few premier programs that are at the top of their games, and then there are a few that are trying like heck to get back to that plateau.
The first team that comes to mind is the Michigan Wolverines. The Maze and Blue record the last four years is 30-20, which isn't terrible, but by Michigan's standards, it isn't all that great either.
Most of the focus is on last year's record of 3-9 for first year coach Rich Rodriguez. When you take into account the change in offensive systems and philosophy, added with players transferring out, these were all factors that resulted in the struggle that was 2008.
Michigan has now lost five of their last seven bowl games going back to 2002. Going back in recent history, Michigan had produced double digit wins in five of their last seven seasons from 1997-2003, they've only got one double digit winning season in their last four seasons.
Michigan's 20 losses in the last four years are the most for the Wolverines since 1965-1968, where they lost 18 games.
Michigan will turn it around though, and quick. Their recruiting class last year was solid, and they added some real speed at key positions, the kind of speed that the Big Ten just doesn't see on a regular basis.
One of Michigan's key rivals, Notre Dame, is another obvious pick. The Irish, maybe the most historically rich program in the nation, have produced a 29-21 record over the last four years, and an even worse 10-15 record the last two seasons.
One of the most disturbing trends is losses in nine of their last ten bowl games. Their bowl win last season actually broke a nine-year losing streak in bowl games, a streak that spanned from 1995-2007.
Notre Dame is a program that usually feasts on the lesser programs that they face every year, but in the last two years the Irish have lost to Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Air Force, and allowed Navy to break a 43 game winning steak over the Midshipmen in 2007.
It's not just Notre Dame itself though, Charlie Weis is fighting for his legacy as well. As of now, only three Notre Dame coaches historically have a worse winning percentage than Weis does. It's now or never for the Irish as Weis has put together some very good recruiting classes the last few years. You should begin to see some results in 2009, or Weis will be in serious trouble.
When was the last time Nebraska produced a player the caliber of Tommy Frazier? Lawrence Phillips? Ahman Green? The Cornhuskers are another team that is looking to regain the dominance they had in the 70's and the 90's. The Huskers are 31-20 over the last four years, never losing less than four games in that span.
Obviously you can't expect the run like they had in the 90's where they won three national championships and had a stretch of nine of eleven double-digit winning seasons from 1993-2003. However, the Cornhuskers are moving in the right direction with Bo Pelini, and a win last year ove
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