FWAA 75th Anniversary All-America Team: Full List, Comments, Reaction

The Football Writers Association of America announced its 75th Anniversary All-America Team on Thursday. The honor recognizes the best players in college football across all three phases of the sport since the organization was founded in 1941.

Roger Staubach, Archie Griffin, Jerry Rice, Mike Singletary and Charles Woodson were among the players selected to the first team, with full results posted on the organization's official site. FWAA 75th All-America Committee chairman Kirk Bohls explained the trickiness of the process:

"

This was one of the most fun, yet most difficult exercises I've had in life - next to parallel parking, that is. Truly, it was an exciting - if not impossible - task to find the best 75 college football players ever. Please save your hate mail, but feel free to weigh in and tell us how we messed up. And I'm sure we did, but no one should argue that it wasn't a great idea to honor the best who have ever played the game. Let the debating begin.

"

Here's a look at the full group of choices:

Pos.	First Team	Second Team	Third Team
OFFENSE	-	-	-
QB	Roger Staubach, Navy	Tim Tebow, Florida	Tommie Frazier, Nebraska
RB	Archie Griffin, Ohio State	Tony Dorsett, Pittsburgh	Bo Jackson, Auburn
RB	Herschel Walker, Georgia	Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State	Doak Walker, SMU
WR	Larry Fitzgerald, Pittsburgh	Fred Biletnikoff, Florida State	Anthony Carter, Michigan
WR	Jerry Rice, Mississippi Valley State	Randy Moss, Marshall	Calvin Johnson, Georgia Tech
TE	Keith Jackson, Oklahoma	Mike Ditka, Pittsburgh	Gordon Hudson, BYU
OL	John Hannah, Alabama	Bill Fralic, Pittsburgh	Barrett Jones, Alabama
OL	Orlando Pace, Ohio State	John Hicks, Ohio State	Willie Roaf, Louisiana Tech
OL	Will Shields, Nebraska	Calvin Jones, Iowa	Jerry Sisemore, Texas
OL	Ron Yary, USC	Jonathan Ogden, UCLA	Dean Steinkuhler, Nebraska
C	Dave Rimington, Nebraska	Chuck Bednarik, Penn	Jim Ritcher, N.C. State
DEFENSE	-	-	-
DT	Lee Roy Selmon, Oklahoma	Merlin Olsen, Utah State	Steve Emtman, Washington
DT	Ndamukong Suh, Nebraska	Randy White, Maryland	Reggie White, Tennessee
DE	Leon Hart, Notre Dame	Hugh Green, Pittsburgh	Bubba Smith, Michigan State
DE	Ted Hendricks, Miami (Fla.)	Bruce Smith, Virginia Tech	Jack Youngblood, Florida
LB	Tommy Nobis, Texas	Brian Bosworth, Oklahoma	Jack Ham, Penn State
LB	Mike Singletary, Baylor	Dick Butkus, Illinois	Lee Roy Jordan, Alabama
LB	Derrick Thomas, Alabama	Luke Kuechly, Boston College	Chris Spielman, Ohio State
DB	Ronnie Lott, USC	Champ Bailey, Georgia	Dre Bly, North Carolina
DB	Deion Sanders, Florida State	Kenny Easley, UCLA	Dave Brown, Michigan
DB	Jack Tatum, Ohio State	Jerry Gray, Texas	Troy Polamalu, USC
DB	Charles Woodson, Michigan	Ed Reed, Miami (Fla.)	Roy Williams, Oklahoma
SPECIALISTS	-	-	-
P	Ray Guy, Southern Miss	Russell Erxleben, Texas	Rohn Stark, Florida State
K	Kevin Butler, Georgia	Mason Crosby, Colorado	Tony Franklin, Texas A&M
RS	Johnny Rodgers, Nebraska	Raghib Ismail, Notre Dame	Derek Abney, Kentucky

Nebraska leads all schools with six players, followed by Ohio State and Pittsburgh with five each. In all, the release notes the top 75 come from 41 different schools. The top conference is the Big Ten with 19 selections, four more than the second-place ACC.

It's easy to see why the committee chairman talked about the difficulty of the process. There are countless players, including Tony Dorsett, Randy Moss, Bruce Smith and Dick Butkus, who could easily warrant a spot on the first team. But it's a major challenge to decide who should move to make room.

Tim Tebow is one player who always demands attention. Although his NFL career has never really taken off, he was a force at Florida, helping lead the Gators to a pair of national titles and winning the 2007 Heisman Trophy. The voters decided that warranted a spot on the second team.

Bomani Jones of ESPN doesn't agree with the placement of the polarizing Gator:

That said, while there will surely be debates about where certain players ended up, the bottom line is all three teams are loaded with talent. Though it's obviously impossible, a round-robin tournament between these squads would be a sight to behold.

The rosters should at least provide a good basis for debate while we wait for the final days to tick away before the new college football season gets underway.