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LSU - LSU may be at their crossroads. With 'bama so dominate, and LSU making the big splashy hire of promoting their coordinator...
Tennessee - 1 Chip Kelly hire from returing to to the top.
Virginia Tech - gonna find out if this was just Beamer or really one of the better teams in the ACC.

Next trio:

LSU, Tennessee, Virginia Tech

LSU
UT
VaTech


IMHO, LSU and UT is very close.  UT has better overall history but nothing lately.  LSU gets the nod from me based on recency but they need to keep it going or else Tennessee's overall better history would put them back ahead. 


WRT VaTech, I'm always a little skeptical of teams that basically only have good history with one coach.  Outside of Beamer I don't believe that VaTech ever had a sustained level of success.  We'll see over the coming years. 

Well Hawai'i played in the Sugar that one year they were undefeated.  Got pantsed vs. a big-boy UGA team.

I'm talking about now. TCU (then in the MWC I think) got to play in the Rose and beat an unsuspecting Wisconsin team one year. I don't think that would be in play today.

I think that was a short lived caveat after the other bowls got mad that the Rose was the only one of the four with two tie-ins, so they were previously protected from ever having to take the mid-major.

really surprised by all the lsu above ut. to much recency bias imo.

ut is in same boat as psu to me, without the recent success. if there are 8 sure fire blue bloods (bama, nd, ou, osu, mich, usc, neb, texas, not necessarily in order) they are right on fringe at 9-10. lsu more in the 15-20 range.

ut
lsu
vt

Your top-8 are the top-8 in all-time winning percentage.  Tennessee is 11th and LSU is 12th.  Granted, there is a BIG gap between Tennessee and LSU:

• .730  Michigan
• .728  Notre Dame
• .724  Ohio State
• .721  Oklahoma
• .721  Alabama
• .701  Texas
• .700  USC
• .699  Nebraska
• .686  PSU
• .682  Florida State (way less games played than the others)
• .681  Tennessee
• .650  LSU

The 800 wins club (and LSU which is likely next to join):

• 935  Michigan
• 896  Notre Dame
• 891  Texas
• 889  Nebraska
• 886  Ohio State
• 878  Alabama
• 872  Oklahoma
• 867  Penn State
• 829  Tennessee
• 823  USC
• 803  Georgia
• 778  LSU

There is a historical gap between LSU and Tennessee with Tennessee being clearly ahead all-time but I just don't think the overall gap is all that big.  I think it is small enough for recency to make up for it. 

My lifetime (50 years)


14. Tennessee 0.678
17. LSU 0.664
21. VT 0.622


20 years


6. LSU 0.724
8. VT 0.716
26. Tennessee 0.640

Tennessee (a lot more history and conference titles)
LSU
VaTech


Also, my Momma was a Tenn grad.  I still don't much like them though.

Medina sums up my reasoning.

Mine too. All time Tennessee gets the edge but it's pretty close.  Cincydawg mentions a lot more history and conference titles but I don't see it.  College football reference credits UT with 13 and LSU with 11.  Maybe a different source has different numbers.

UT has started going down an anti-helmet road for me.  Any good start for the Vols I find myself thinking it's a matter of time before reality sets in.  I'll believe they're a national title contender again  when I see it. I'm not at that point with LSU.