Ranking the 25 SECCGs.

B1GTide

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2012 is also my #1, with 1992 my #2. The 2008 game was amazing and I agree that the Hightower facemask penalty turned the game. Without that penalty Florida punts and Alabama gets the ball back with the lead. Score and the game is over. But the drive was extended and Florida fed off of the play, never looking back. Tebow's passes in that game, especially in the 4th quarter, were the best of his career. Tiny windows, but he squeezed the ball into them.
 

TideEngineer08

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Beautiful Cullman, AL
Selma, all else being equal in 1994, what do you think would have happened if we had beaten Florida in the SECC and then went on to beat FSU in the Sugar Bowl?

As I said earlier in the thread, Nebraska won all the polls and Penn State got shut out of a share of the NC despite their 12-0 record. Would our 13-0 record, with a close of the season like that, have propelled us to at least a share of the NC in your opinion?
 

Crimson1967

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I have the seven we won tied for first. The two losses by the barn are tied for eighth. The nine neither of us played in are tied for 10th.


The three barn wins are tied for 19th. Our four losses are tied for 22nd.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

selmaborntidefan

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Selma, all else being equal in 1994, what do you think would have happened if we had beaten Florida in the SECC and then went on to beat FSU in the Sugar Bowl?

As I said earlier in the thread, Nebraska won all the polls and Penn State got shut out of a share of the NC despite their 12-0 record. Would our 13-0 record, with a close of the season like that, have propelled us to at least a share of the NC in your opinion?

Short answer: we would have gotten screwed and wound up #3 in the polls and our fans would be tracing the plunging fortunes of 1995-2006 to the fallout from the vote.


(Note: it hit me today that part of my reason for such long and detailed answers stems from the number of times I've interacted with posters here who have not been around as long as I. When I began here in 2000, I was one of the younger posters here for sure. But to give one example, Untouchable above has no recollection of 1992. Thus, I have to remember that even though I recall - somewhat - the 79 national title team, MOST of the posters here DO NOT. Therefore, I try to explain in detail because college football has changed more rapidly than any sport I can think of since 1990).


And now for the long answer to explain why.

In 1994, there were two recognized polls, the AP and the coach's poll. These crowned national champions (the coach's poll had once been known as the UPI poll, which we won in 1973 while Notre Dame won the AP). This was before the BCS, which began in 1998. And things worked differently back then, and I'll admit it colors my views.

Prior to the BCS, a team starting the year at #1 was pretty much guaranteed to win it all or get the benefit of the doubt. While occasionally there were teams that dropped (note that 1966 Alabama dropped from one to three without ever playing a single snap and in 1979, Alabama dropped from first to second in the poll after beating 8-3 Auburn by a touchdown on a weekend when Ohio State did not even play - the Tide lost five first-place votes and still had a huge lead there but many of the folks who did not have Alabama first dropped us to third to set up the Rose Bowl of USC-Ohio St).

Here is your pre-season top five in the 1994 AP poll:
1) Florida
2) Notre Dame
3) Florida State - defending national champions
4) Nebraska
5) Michigan
12) Alabama

The coaches poll looked like this:
1) Florida
2) Florida St
3) Nebraska
4) Notre Dame
5) Michigan


There was developing sentiment in the voting for "coaches who have been around a long time but have yet to win a national championship." This happened in 1991, when a phenomenal Washington Huskies team shared the title with Miami. Articles were written sentimentally about Washington head coach Don James as "the Bear Bryant of the Northwest." In 1993, Bobby Bowden benefited from this sentiment. It's true that James had the best team in the country, and it's also true that Bowden's team played a murderer's row in 1993......but all the talk was about these genial old geezers finally winning a title. Even Gene Stallings's title in 1992 - while undisputed - received a lot of "look at that old guy finally getting his due."

This is the CONTEXT of the 1994 season, and it poisoned a lot of what happened.

When Nebraska blasted West Virginia 31-0 in the opener to the 1994 season, the coach's poll IMMEDIATELY moved Nebraska to the top spot. They didn't wait until Florida or FSU lost, they took up for that old "Tom Osborne has never won a title and he wins it the right way blah blah" stuff (Lawrence Phillips didn't happen until the next year). The AP moved Nebraska up to second place. The very next week AFTER AN OFF WEEK mind you....Nebraska moved up to number one right after Florida pulverized New Mexico State, 70-21.

So Nebraska managed to move up to number one in BOTH POLLS due to one impressive win over what turned out to be a 7-6 mediocrity.

Florida moved back up after putting 73 more points into a foe, this time Bill Curry's Kentucky team. This type of volatility in the polls was unusual for the time frame, but you have to remember that with no BCS and no guarantee of head-to-head in a bowl game, it DID matter where you were ranked. But Nebraska kept the top spot in the coach's poll.

Notre Dame fell by the wayside when Michigan QB Todd Collins led a great comeback win.

The most memorable moment of the year knocked Michigan from the high ranking when Kordell Stewart's Hail Mary to Michael Westbrook completed a stunning 27-26 win and catapulted Colorado into the top five. That same day, Nebraska QB Tommie Frazier went out against Pacific and was diagnosed with a blood clot in his leg that would sideline him until the second half of the Orange Bowl. Nebraska struggled to beat Wyoming behind the late Brook Berringer, and the pollsters no longer seemed to consider Nebraska the uncrowned prince. But then disaster struck the polls.

On October 15, Auburn stunned Florida in the Swamp, and the polls now had a major problem: Auburn was serving the second year of a probation that would not permit them to play in the bowl games. They could not win the SEC, but they had now won eighteen games in a row, including beating Spurrier twice. If Auburn were eligible for the title, they probably get moved to the top spot.....save for the death defying win over LSU, where they returned three pick sixes in the final 11 minutes of a game they trailed, 23-9.

Penn State was the new number one after a solid win over a decent Michigan team. After all - unlike Colorado, the Nittany Lions didn't need a miracle heave. Paterno was now on top of BOTH polls.

Nebraska had more problems when Berringer couldn't play Kansas State, but they won the game. Of course, one could argue that this actually proved their schedule was not exactly all that challenging. But then came October 29.

Penn State laid waste to a VERY good Ohio State team, 63-14. This was the team that not only had Bobby Hoying at quarterback but future NFL stars Eddie George, Orlando Pace, and Terry Glenn (among others). So you can imagine the shock in State College when Penn State DROPPED to number two in the AP poll. Yes, Penn State became the first team in history to beat blast a ranked (21) team by seven touchdowns and DROP in the polls.

Why? Because Nebraska beat Colorado quite convincingly in Lincoln. And Colorado had in recent weeks knocked off a sequence of challenging foes - Michigan, Texas, Mizzou, OU, and K-State........overrated teams save for Michigan and maybe Texas. But when Nebraska beat CU, they suddenly got all the credit CU had gotten.

So now each poll had a different number one. And then the other shoe dropped. A week later, Nebraska blasted Kansas and Penn State edged Indiana, 35-29. Nebraska rose to the top spot in both polls.

The fury from State College was immediate. First, they had dropped despite blowing out Ohio State. There were complaints about teams (most notably Florida) shamelessly running up scores on overmatched foes. And so Paterno handled the Indiana game different. With six minutes left, Penn State led, 35-14. Paterno had pulled his starters and now actually had third and fourth stringers playing to get time. Indiana got a touchdown and then on the final play hit ANOTHER TD PLUS a two-point conversion.

All the voters saw was "Penn State barely beat a mediocre Indiana team." Nebraska was now in the top spot in both polls.

Keep in mind that Alabama's win over Mississippi State combined with Auburn's tie with Georgia gave us the following rankings after the MSU game:

1) Nebraska
2) Penn St
3) Florida
4) Alabama
5) Miami
6) Auburn

(I'll let you pause to wonder how one-loss Florida who LOST to Auburn AT HOME was ranked higher than the Tigers, who had no losses but a tie to Georgia......). Miami's loss was to Washington at home.

Alabama then beat Auburn in a classic, 21-14, and here is your poll:

1) Nebraska
2) Penn St
3) Alabama
4) Florida

These were the rankings when they met.

Penn State actually played the toughest schedule of the three teams. But the Lions drew Oregon, a team that nobody had really heard of back in 1994. The Rose Bowl was usually USC or UCLA. This also hurt Penn State.


The way the rankings were leading up to the game convinces me that Alabama was doomed no matter what. If Nebraska went unbeaten, they were going to get it. The PROOF is that Penn State, unlike the split titles of 1991 or 1997, did not get the benefit of the doubt and get voted 1/2 the title.

Why not? They never should have dropped in the first place. Alabama did not look impressive all year long, they just won. Barely. Indeed, eight times the Tide had to come from behind in the fourth quarter. It was far and away the most exciting non-title year I've ever seen at Alabama. But I'm convinced that we were going to get hosed - and that's why to be honest with you, I wasn't even upset when we lost to Florida. It was much how I would feel in 2008 but for a different reason. The pollsters were hellbent on crowning Nebraska if they could - and the results showed that was true.
 

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