The best BCS-era college football teams that never played for a national championship

The conversation surrounding college football these days is all about whether or not an expanded playoff is the right move for the health of the sport.

Whether the College Football Playoff expands to 24 teams or not remains to be seen, but as a traditionalist, I miss the days of the BCS, when only two teams played for a national championship at the end of the season.

It was brutal for a large majority of the country, where one loss put all your team's hopes and dreams on life support, but it made for some insanely dramatic television week in and week out.

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This era gave us some of the best champions in the history of the sport, but it also gave us some all-time teams who never played for a natty who more than deserved a shot.

Today, I'll be looking at five of the best teams to never play for a national championship in the BCS era.

Obviously, this is a very subjective ranking, so feel free to comment your choices below.

5. 2000 Miami Hurricanes

We all remember the 2001 Miami Hurricanes as one of the greatest college teams ever assembled, boasting a litany of NFL Draft picks on both sides of the ball like Andre Johnson, Clinton Portis and Ed Reed just to name a few, but what many people don't know is that the 2000 edition of that squad was just as good and may have gotten robbed of a rightful spot in the title game.

Heading into the new millennium, the Canes were a preseason top-five outfit, looking to finally put it all together after head coach Butch Davis had rebuilt the program with elite recruiting classes throughout the late 90s.

2000 was supposed to be the year it all clicked, but an early-season loss to the Washington Huskies put those dreams on hold.

Davis and the Hurricanes stayed the course throughout the year, though, winning the rest of their games on the schedule including a thriller over No. 1 Florida State and a blowout against second-ranked Virginia Tech.

Miami had the resume to excuse that week two loss to Washington, but in the final BCS ranking of the season, the Canes finished third, dashing their chances of competing for a title.

What makes that pill even harder to swallow is that archrival Florida State went on to play in the BCS National Championship despite the loss to the Hurricanes in October.

A Sugar Bowl beatdown of SEC champion and rival Florida only strengthened their argument that they were jobbed, but it fell on deaf ears as the Canes had to settle for finishing the season at No. 2.

The only thing that makes this less egregious is that Miami won a title the very next year, albeit without Jones, the architect behind the budding dynasty.

4. 2004 Auburn Tigers

Anyone who thinks the SEC always got the benefit of the doubt when it came to playing for national championships clearly wasn't around for the 2004 college football season.

Heading into that year, Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville was on the hot seat after a lackluster 2003 campaign that started with a top-10 preseason ranking only to finish completely outside the polls.

Not many people were expecting much from the Tigers, but Tuberville rode the three-headed backfield monster of quarterback Jason Campbell and running backs Ronnie Brown and Carnell "Cadillac" Williams to a perfect regular season including three wins over top-10 teams.

Even after taking down Tennessee and winning the SEC, though, Auburn was left out of the BCS title game, ceding the floor to USC and Oklahoma.

The Tigers would head to the Sugar Bowl by way of conference tie-ins, and while another top-10 victory over Virginia Tech in New Orleans would sway several other pollsters to rank Auburn as the top team in the land, the big ones that counted awarded the Trojans with the crystal football instead.

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Over two decades later, the Tigers' administration finally recognized their 2004 team as national champions, and while I'm normally opposed to programs hanging phony banners (what's up, UCF), this one feels more than justified.

This is classic BCS madness and one of the biggest arrows in the quiver of the powers that be eventually abolishing the two-team system.

3. 2001 Florida Gators

Call me a homer if you want, but I came armed with some facts to back up this "baseless homerism."

As we discussed above, the 2001 Hurricanes were one of the best teams of all time, but their championship matchup against Nebraska, a team that didn't even win its conference, left much to be desired.

Their opponent in that title game should have been none other than Steve Spurrier and the Florida Gators.

The 2001 Gators actually entered the season as the No. 1 team in the country, with a roster full of future NFL players like defensive end Alex Brown and wide receiver Jabar Gaffney in addition to Heisman hopeful Rex Grossman.

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They even carried that top ranking into a night game on the road against Auburn, but without All-American running back Earnest Graham, who was nursing an ankle injury, Florida struggled to move the ball consistently and lost by a field goal.

With their title hopes on the fritz, the Gators rattled off four-straight wins, three of which came against top-20 teams, setting up a showdown against top-five Tennessee in The Swamp.

If you're wondering why a game usually played on the third Saturday in September is taking place at the end of the season, I'd like to point out the year this took place.

The Florida-Tennessee game was supposed to happen on Sept. 15, 2001, just four days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that rocked the nation.

As a result, the matchup was moved to the first weekend in December, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the visiting Vols.

Graham was once again unavailable due to an ankle injury sustained against FSU, and the Gators were sunk by just two points at home, missing out on the SEC Championship Game.

LSU would upset the Volunteers the very next week, though it's worth noting Florida bludgeoned that same Tigers team to the tune of 44 points and over 600 yards earlier that season.

The Gators would go on to win the Orange Bowl that year, lighting up the scoreboard in the process and leaving fans wondering "what if?"

Many Gator fans believe this was Spurrier's best team after the 1996 championship squad, and although I can't say whether they would have beaten Miami or not, they at least deserved a shot.

2. 2007 West Virginia Mountaineers

I've talked about this team in detail before, but the 2007 West Virginia Mountaineers are one of, if not the best team to never have a shot at a national title.

To the naked eye, this looks like a classic case of "had their chance and blew it."

Carrying the nation's best rushing offense and a No. 2 ranking in the BCS polls heading into their regular season finale against Pitt, the Mountaineers were a four-touchdown favorite over their rivals to the north.

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West Virginia was coming off a 66-21 beatdown over a top-20 Connecticut team, and had all the momentum on their side.

It helped that they had the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in their backfield, with Pat White, Steve Slaton, Noel Devine and Owen Schmitt running roughshod over the country all season long.

That rushing attack was ground to a screeching halt, though, as Pitt came into Morgantown and upset the Mountaineers by the now infamous 13-9 scoreline.

West Virginia coughed up the ball five times and had under 200 yards of total offense as they saw their title hopes evaporate into the cold mountain sky.

They would go on to dismantle Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl a month later, lending more credence to the theory that they were one of the most deserving national title contenders in the country.

What makes this even more tragic is that the LSU Tigers would end up winning the whole thing in 2007 with two losses.

If there was ever a year that needed a playoff system, 2007 was it, and West Virginia would have been one of the most feared teams in the field that postseason.

Alas, it was never meant to be, and Mountaineer fans still wake up in cold sweats thinking about this potential title that slipped through the cracks.

1. 2011 Oklahoma State Cowboys

If you're looking for an example of "late stage BCS," the 2011 season is the perfect microcosm of why the two-team system was eventually torn down.

The Oklahoma State Cowboys were offensive juggernauts throughout much of the year, scoring at least 50 in four different Big 12 matchups.

Their aerial assault was paced by quarterback Brandon Weeden and wide receiver Justin Blackmon in addition to offensive coordinator and future NFL head coach Todd Monken.

Everything was going swimmingly for the Cowboys until the day before their penultimate conference game, when a tragic plane crash took the lives of women's basketball coaches Kurt Budke and Miranda Serna.

The crash shook Oklahoma State's campus, and the football team was emotionally shaken heading into their road game in Ames, Iowa.

Those emotions reared their head as the Cowboys lost in double overtime to Iowa State, leaving the door open for a very controversial rematch between LSU and Alabama in the BCS Championship Game.

Fans argued that the Crimson Tide, who lost in overtime to the Tigers, didn't deserve a shot at redemption as they didn't even make it to their conference championship game.

Oklahoma State would go on to dismantle top-10 Oklahoma to close out the regular season, but that final cherry on top of their historic campaign wasn't enough to sway the BCS polls, as the Cowboys were relegated to a Fiesta Bowl appearance for their efforts.

Even after an overtime win against a top-five, Andrew Luck-led Stanford team, the best the 'Boys could muster was a Colley Matrix national title.

Close, but no cigar.

This was the final controversy that led to the end of the BCS, and it's easy to see why Oklahoma State fans felt robbed of a fair shot, especially given the circumstances.