Ranking The National Champions of the 1990s

selmaborntidefan

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1995 Nebraska

THE CASE FOR


The 95 Nebraska Cornhuskers were the greatest team in college football history. No team ever dominated their opponents on both sides of the ball to the degree the Huskers did. The general consensus of pundits and CFB writers is that the two greatest teams ever were the 95 Huskers and 2001 Miami. While the case strongly favors the Huskers, I will focus on the fact that this leaves no dispute regarding which team was the best of the 90s.

Nebraska was so good that none of their opponents was even close. No team of the 90s beat more TOP TEN teams or by as much. Nebraska thumped #2 Florida, #5 Kansas St, #7 Colorado, and #9 Kansas by an AVERAGE of 31 points. They blew out the same team that is considered so great that the very next year that team won the championship with what's considered an all-time great team.

Nebraska ran up 52 plus points a game and over 550 yards of offense, most of it rushing the ball - oh, and they did a major portion of this damage without one of the best backs of all-time, Lawrence Phillips, getting onto the field. In one season, Nebraska crushed Nick Saban, Howard Schnellenberger, and Steve Spurrier - three national championship winning coaches, and NONE of the games was even close. And Nebraska of the 90s literally OWNED the SEC, a conference that had three championship teams (92, 96, 98), blowing out Florida to win one title and the Peyton Manning-led Volunteers of Tennessee to win another. And even after Osborne was gone, the Big Red thrashed the Vols again in 1999.

Some pundits like to put forth 1991 Washington by saying that the Huskies were about as dominant as Nebraska was - a joke to be sure, but you also have to remember that they faced a lighter schedule (.553 vs .522) and had the convenience of not having to face the killer Miami squad of those years.

Consider what those knowledgeable of college ball will tell you. Paul Finebaum, who has seen plenty of football, rates them as the greatest ever and perhaps the greatest coach of all-time, Nick Saban, said it was the most complete team he'd ever seen. This is a guy who ought to know as he's won six championships during an SEC dominant era.

There is not a team in the decade that would stay on the field with Huskers of 1995.


THE CASE AGAINST

Let's get it out of the way quickly - they're a damn good football team. But this tendency to not look too closely permeates and contaminates CFB analysis more than any other sport.

Consider the "they beat four teams that finished in the top ten" argument. Yes, they did, and Colorado was a legit team. But how did the two Kansas teams finish in the top ten? They finished in the top ten because the once you get below the top spot, it doesn't make a substantial difference anyway. Kansas entered the bowl games ranked #11 with two blowout losses to Nebraska and K-State. They then drew an unranked four-loss UCLA team in the Aloha Bowl and scored 51 points on them. This wasn't a major accomplishment when you remember that UCLA's defense surrendered 37 points THREE OTHER TIMES that year. Texas loses to a better Va Tech team and DESPITE a 10-1-1 record that's a half-game better than Kansas, the Jayhawks jump Texas and finish in the top ten. This same Texas team beat the same UVA team that upset #1 Florida State.

Kansas St wound up 7th because they were tenth going into the bowl games, beat an overmatched WAC champion that didn't belong on the same field, and then Ohio State (despite a better record) lost to a better opponent than K State managed to beat (Tennessee) and dropped - and Cinderella Northwestern lost a great game to USC.....and K State again moved up.

The notion that K State was some sort of giant needs to be dispelled now: 9 of their 10 wins came against teams that lost 2/3 of their games (35-65) - and the other was against Kansas, whom they routed by about the same score as Nebraska did.

THESE are your "four top ten teams" Nebraska beat. Two were paper tigers, one was legit - and the other one was Florida. With the benefit of hindsight, the win over Florida is not nearly as impressive as it appeared then, either.

Steve Spurrier was a very good coach, but he was the Tom Osborne of his time. Just like Osborne, he would lose EVERY SINGLE important game during his entire coaching career. Spurrier, like Osborne, was a bully with a big, bad offense that got teams out of their game plan by punching in 3 or 4 quick TDs early on and setting it on cruise control. But Spurrier collapsed in the big games in ways even Osborne never managed.

In 1990, his Gators were on probation and ineligible for the SEC title. Biggest two games of the year were Tennessee - a 45-3 loss for Spurrier - and Florida State, who beat him, 45-30.

In 1991, Spurrier was sitting pretty with a #3 SEC champion....and promptly blew a 13-0 lead and surrendered 22 fourth qtr points to an above average at best Notre Dame.

In 1993, he had one big game, Auburn....naturally, he lost.

In 1994, he AGAIN lost to Auburn....and then watched his team blow a 31-3 fourth qtr lead and win up with a tie against FSU.

In 1995, his team actually led Nebraska early and got routed.

In 1996 - the year of his title - he backed into the title game after blowing the #1 ranking but watching Nebraska lose and getting a second chance.

In 1999, he had the #3 team in the country that had not lost a home game in five years.....that fumbled away a game to Alabama in the final minutes (and overtime). Offered a chance for redemption, Spurrier coached his charges to a 27-point massacre in the SEC title game.

In 2001, all he has to do is beat Tennessee (which he'd done quite well) and win the SEC title game to face Miami for another national title. He's not up to it, and Spurrier leaves shortly thereafter.

In short, Spurrier lost the biggest game he had almost every single year - and Nebraska fans want to make this some sort of litmus test of greatness.

Nebraska WAS good in 1995 because they had a good offensive line that could run the ball. They DID have a good defense. But so this hype machine doesn't go too far, the reality is that they couldn't throw the ball to save their lives. Despite the fact virtually every single Nebraska pass was a shock (since they didn't need to throw it), the Huskers completed less than 54% of their passes.....68th nationally. Husker fans wax eloquent about how tragic the passing of "future NFL draft pick" Brook Berringer in a plane crash "just days before the draft." If you're dumb enough to believe that Berringer was an NFL quality QB, you must be a Nebraska fan. What NFL team can't use a QB who goes 26 for 51 and 252 yards with 0 TDs? I mean, those are Peyton Manning numbers, right? Berringer wasn't going to get drafted, and he wasn't going to play in the NFL, either.

What separates 1991 Washington from 1995 Nebraska is that one team had both a rushing and passing offense, and the other had an incredible rushing offense. I won't say 1992 Alabama would be able to beat the Huskers because the offense was terrible. However, the one-dimensional running attack of Nebraska was susceptible to a defense with the athletes and scheme to accomplish it. They'd most certainly give them fits when they could focus eleven guys on tackling whoever was running and take their chances with the 50/50 passing of Frazier/Berringer.

Finally, 1995 was one of those years that happen every so often where the nationwide parity didn't exist. Nebraska that year was like LSU and Alabama in 2011, a clear cut case of the best team and nobody else even close. Yeah, Nebraska won their games by big margins - so did Florida and for mostly the same reason.

Nobody dared suggest prior to the game that this was a great Nebraska team - and then one hour of football later, and they become the greatest of all-time beating a guy who regularly choked in the big game.

I'm sorry, but I pass.
 

81usaf92

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I think the 95 Nebraska team was the best Nebraska team but are a bit overrated. I would rank them anywhere from 3rd to 5th best team in the 90’s
 

Probius

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I would put '95 Nebraska at #1. "95 Nebraska was one of the greatest of all time and dominated everyone that season. Nebraska completely took apart a Spurrier coached Florida team at the height of Spurrier's coaching tenure. That team was so fun to watch too. I'll never forget watching Tommie Frazier running wild on teams.
 

selmaborntidefan

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1996 Florida Gators - THE CASE FOR

The 1996 Florida Gators were the best team of the 90s and one of the best in the history of college football. Using the "Fun 'n' Gun" patented and refined by Steve Spurrier - and executed immaculately by Danny Wuerffel - the Gators scored 611 points, the most by any Division I-A/FBS/Power 5/Teams Actually Worth A Damn (at that time) than any team not named Nebraska (who topped that total in both 1983 and 1995). And they did it despite facing four of the seven best defenses in the country on their schedule, including three in their final three games. Furthermore, they absolutely shredded those defenses by double digits every time they played:

Tennessee (#5 total, #6 scoring at 14.3 ppg) - 35 points (+21 Florida)
Alabama (#8 total, #7 scoring at 15.1 ppg) - 45 points (+30 Florida)
FSU regular season (#3 total, #3 scoring at 11.1 ppg) - 21 points (+10 Florida)
FSU Sugar Bowl (#3 total, #3 scoring at 11.1 ppg) - 51 points (+ 40 Florida)

As if that wasn't enough, the Gators also faced the #22 defense (LSU at 18.5 ppg) and hung 51 points on them. The Gators had THREE games that were close on the final scoreboard, two ranked teams and Vandy's solid defense (the 'Dores were, in fact, the sixth best scoring defense in the SEC in 1996, better than Auburn or Georgia). And even the Vols game is an artificial stat. Sure, the final score of the Vols game was 35-29, but the Gators got their 35 points in less than the entire first half and went into cruise mode. If the Vols have any QB besides Peyton Manning, they never get that close. But the Gators weren't just a great OFFENSE, they were a great DEFENSE, too.

The Gators ranked 14th in total defense (281.1 ypg) and 15th in scoring defense (16.8 ppg). Let's face it - when you average 46 points a game and surrender less than 17, you're going to win almost every single time. Bear in mind the Gators also faced one of the toughest schedules every played, and now let's deal with the two obvious objections to the Gator case:

1) It was a fluke Florida ever got a chance at the title, and they lost the only game that mattered.

This argument and the next argument are sort of the same thing (related anyway). The argument goes like this: "Nebraska was 'really' the best team and should have played Florida State. It was only because of the fluke loss to Texas when their best RB was out with the flu - and the Huskers lost - that Florida moved into the title game and then had a month to prepare for a revenge game."

Fair enough.

But if Nebraska losing to 4-loss Texas by ten points was a fluke loss, how in the world can you hold a 3-point loss to the #2 team in the nation with the #3 defense - AT THEIR HOUSE - to NOT be a fluke as well?

Fluke losses DO happen, okay? App State probably couldn't beat Michigan again in the Big House if you spotted them an NFL coaching staff. Boise St probably couldn't beat Oklahoma in a regular season game - even in 2006 - in Norman. Does anyone "really" believe that LSU was better than Alabama in 2011 or Texas A/M in 2012? Does anyone "really" believe that Iowa State would beat Nebraska as they did in 1992 if those two teams played another 100 games against each other?

The problem is that the pro-Nebraska argument is only PARTIALLY true; the part they always leave out is that Florida THEN had to go out and beat the #11 team in the nation whose only losses were a fluke due to kicking (Mississippi State) and a game where they outplayed Tennessee everywhere but on the scoreboard, holding Peyton Manning to 125 yards passing. So it's not like Florida didn't have to beat a very good team just to make the game.

2) But the loss to Nebraska in 1995

"But this was virtually the same team that lost to Nebraska in 1995." Well, okay - but if you're gonna use that ridiculous argument then why not point out the 94 and 95 Nebraska teams were virtually the same but NOBODY dares to suggest the 1994 team ranks among the all-time greats. HOW DOES THAT WORK??? College teams are single-year entities except in sports like college b-ball where you can have the same five players for 2 years.

Doesn't Arizona State beating Nebraska in 1996 refute that argument all by itself?

As far as the loss to Florida State, okay, the Noles won. How many of you making that reference point actually watched the game? Florida had eight more first downs, 126 more yards of offense, and if Wuerffel doesn't throw two picks into the end zone, the game isn't even close and Florida wins. Florida dominated the game, and FSU got flagged for 143 yards in penalties that should have been more, but they kept letting the Noles hit Danny Wuerffel after the whistle - a fact Spurrier brought out and made his point of reference during the interim prior to the Sugar Bowl. FSU then had to be less aggressive, and they got blown out.

Bear in mind that even with all that, Florida was still double digits above FSU's normal points surrendered as well as yards. It was kind of like that 2016 Ohio State vs Penn State game, where the better team had a bad night on the road and got done in by an opportunistic play. And isn't that all washed way in the rematch anyway?

THE CASE AGAINST

There was never a bigger choke artist in the big game than Stephen Orr Spurrier. Not even Mack Brown could field the level of superior talent that Spurrier did and have but one title to show for it. As long as he was running up meaningless points and yards against hapless Kentucky or Georgia Southern, he looked like a Pinball Wizard, if not deaf, dumb, or blind. Put him on the field with anything resembling equal talent, and he crumbled like a cookie.

Despite being a hellacious offensive mind, Spurrier was a horrible coach at making adjustments when he couldn't roar out to a 28-point first half lead. Beating Spurrier was no different than beating the 70s and 80s Oklahoma and Nebraska teams - survive the first five possessions within striking distance and then run the ball to keep his offense off the field. Yeah, Florida averaged 47 points per game in 1996, but they had 44.5 in 1995......and that 2.5 points less wouldn't have made a difference in any game anyway. And despite the myth that the 1996 defense commanded by Bob Stoops was substantially better than the 1995 Bob Pruett version, simply look a the scoring defense:

1995 - 16.8 ppg
1996 - 16.8 ppg

Yes, the scoring defense was exactly the same as the previous year. Now the TOTAL defense was better by 34 yards, a not insubstantial sum but that can also be explained by the fact that the 1996 team had more close games than the 1995 one did. The 1995 teams were pulling off early because none of their games were close, which raises the garbage yards run up by teams playing their first-string against Florida's 2nd and 3rd string. (One might surmise Bob Stoops's entire career progression is based on a fraud that explains why he never won more than one title, either).

So it's simply not true that the difference in the two Gator teams is the defense; the defenses were mostly the same with the same results.

Who did the 1995 Gators defense lose? 3 guys to the NFL, none above the third round. They returned eight starters from the 2nd best defense in the SEC. In other words, it was basically the same defense, which is an advantage in terms of team chemistry. And that leads to another observation: Florida's high defensive ratings are primarily the product of simply not facing good offenses, which renders the "good defense" argument into another context.

The 1995 Gators - setting aside the nation's top offense in Nebraska - faced scoring offenses ranked 2 (FSU), 5 (Auburn), 7 (Tennessee), and 10 (South Carolina). Their DEFENSIVE numbers were thus obtained by facing FIVE of the ten best offenses in the nation. By contrast, in 1996, the Gators faced ONE offense in the top ten (FSU, 8) plus Tennessee (13), and Auburn (17). Okay, technically they faced TWO offenses in the top ten when they faced the same one twice.

In context, which defense is actually better, the one that played more great offenses but gave up more yards because of blowouts or the one that won the national championship?

Let's face it - you can't argue for Florida as the best team of the 90s when there's no way they would have beaten the 1996 Nebraska Cornhuskers, who had a better offense than any team the Gators beat and better than the one team that beat them (an average of 4 ppg more for the 96 Huskers over the Noles). And 17 Huskers of the 95 team were drafted into the NFL while only 15 of the Gators were despite the Gators's head coach being an NFL veteran with connections.

Florida's 1996 title will always be tainted because as the Nebraska dynasty of the 90s shows with their record against the SEC, there's no reason to argue Florida wins a game head-to-head with Nebraska.
 

selmaborntidefan

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1997 Nebraska

THE CASE FOR


Tom Osborne's swan song at Nebraska is criminally underrated and in the ultimate irony, it's Osborne's fault. Because the 1995 team was so good, so dominant, Osborne himself contributed to the 97 team not being nearly as respected as their predecessors. But when you look closely, they compare quite well. The 1997 team averaged 47.1 points per game, and while the schedule wasn't as challenging as some other schedules, you can't blame Nebraska for who they didn't get to play. It's not who you play but what you do against who you play that really matters. Nebraska played the nation's 6th best scoring defense (Kansas State, 14.8) and hung 56 points on them. They also played the 16th best (Texas A/M, 17.3) and put 54 on them. Other than the Tennessee Volunteers, who Nebraska shredded like cheese in the bowl game (Peyton Manning anyone?), those were the two best teams the Huskers faced, and the Big Red pulverized all three of them (putting 42 more on Tennessee's defense that allowed less than half that during the season).

Yes, Nebraska had a few closer games than normal, but that's to be expected. You can't hold Nebraska to the standards of other teams because this was a FIFTH STRAIGHT YEAR where EVERY game for the Huskers was a pressure cooker. Nebraska went 50-2 in this time frame, so by this time the pressure of EVERY game - exacerbated by graduation - was building on the Huskers. Let's be honest - nobody on Nebraska's schedule would have rather beaten another team more than they wanted to beat Nebraska (kinda like Alabama now), so the pressure was enormous. And yet Nebraska only failed to show up one time - on the road at a top five team with a brand new quarterback. Otherwise, the Huskers passed every single test when their team was healthy.

Much is made of Michigan this year, but the Crazed in Blue's stats are the product of playing in a league that doesn't score many points. Iowa, Ohio State, and Michigan State all had top 13 defenses that year - and two of them were 7-5 mediocrities that got blown out in bowl games. Ask yourself this question: how many times did a Big Ten team in 1997 score 42 or more points against a RANKED team (at the end of the year)? Michigan's top point total for the entire year was 38 points AT HOME against 2-9 Baylor......a team Nebraska hung 49 points on the road. Now I'm sure the Michigan fans will say "but Colorado," but yeah......a game early in the season against a non-rival is exactly the same as one late in the season with both teams fully engaged that IS a rivalry game as CU-Nebraska had been for years by 1997 (more so, in fact, than Oklahoma).

What about Missouri, right? It clouds over every discussion of this Nebraska team as if you can dismiss an accomplishment with the words "yeah but." Okay, Nebraska did struggle with Missouri - though no more than Colorado did in 1990; at least the Huskers scored their TD on FOURTH down. Why not give Nebraska credit for proving the reality that great teams aren't always great - they're only great when they have to be? Nebraska never let it die and - just like Auburn in 2010 as well as the 2013 Iron Bowl - they gutted it out to the last gasp of the last play and won.

Michigan should consider themselves fortunate; if they'd faced an actual offense like Nebraska had that year, they'd be going on 73 years without a championship. Keep in mind that even though this offense may not have been up to NEBRASKA'S previous high standards, it was still both the best offense and rushing offense in college football by a WIDE margin. The second best scoring offense was nearly five points less than the Big Red.

The Nebraska dynasty of 1997 stands as a tribute to a great all-time coach. Diminishing his accomplishments with dismissals says more about the pundit than it does about this team.


THE CASE AGAINST

Nebraska fans are like those idiots who think Don Drysdale was a Hall of Fame pitcher; they tie all their hopes to 1995 and then DARE the critic to say that the 1993-94-95-96-97 teams weren't great. The fact this is the very definition of a weak hand doesn't deter them in the least.

Let's give a concrete idea of how utterly absurd this argument is.

Nebraska was 60-3 over five seasons. The parallel I have in mind was 54-8-1 over five years, which isn't as good as 60-3 but is nothing to sneeze at, either. In fact, if you drop the final year for Nebraska and make it a four-year comparison you get:

Nebraska 47-3 (vs EOYRT 13-2)
Ghost Team 45-5-1 (vs EOYRT 12-4-1)

Those look REAL close to the same, don't they? It's a margin of two games and since a tie can go either way, only 1/2 of a win in the win column.

What is this Ghost Team? Try the 1991-1994 Alabama Crimson Tide. And then throw in the fact that save for one year the SEC was usually substantially tougher than the Big 8/12.......

THAT should show you how preposterous the idea of marrying 1997 Nebraska to the 1995 truly is. The 91 Alabama team lost a game by a score of 35-0 and scraped by numerous mediocre opponents. The 93 team lost to a 25-point underdog. A lot of people don't realize that Alabama was one of the five best teams of the first 7 years of the 1990s, but they were. But NOBODY suggests that the 1994 team was an all-time great or even a great defense because the 92 defense was.

The 97 Huskers had a great offense, true. Sure, they played Kansas State and scored a bunch. They also struggled against a 4-loss Washington team, scraped by a 5-6 Colorado team that Michigan blew out, and illegally kicked their way to a win over Missouri, a team who was haphazard and mediocre at best. Even then they cheated for the win.

On top of all that came the grossest injustice - dropping Michigan from the top spot after the Wolverines had beaten a top ten team led by a high draft choice quarterback simply to give Tom Osborne a going away present he didn't deserve was a scandal of the highest order. Of course, that couldn't be done in 1994, when it was Joe Paterno getting screwed by the pollsters now, could it? Nebraska's 1997 title was an undeserved fluke that was little more than giving the parting gifts to "the players not chosen to be on The Price is Right" who actually won both showcases. Had it been anybody but Osborne, Michigan wins both polls.
 

GP for Bama

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Any analysis that does not have Alabama's 1992 team as the best is clearly flawed.
I agree. If Miami had won that National Championship game... they would probably be considered the best team of the 90's.
Bama destroyed that Miami team.
 
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81usaf92

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That's fine. I just think Michigan wasn't nearly the team Nebraska was that year.
I’ll put it this way. The day after we beat Notre Dame for the title there were numerous articles in Nebraska suggesting our dynasty was a fraud and needed luck and politics and we didn’t measure up since they had 3 undefeated seasons. So the 1997 title will always be a sore spot for me.
 
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