Top college football team or top Big Ten football team?
The #1 on that list is the 1995 Huskers, whether it's Big Ten or the whole of college football.
#2 for all of college football is 2001 Miami, which I don't think anyone will dispute. They're commonly talked about as one of the great teams of all time. If it's
just the Big Ten, it may be 2002 Ohio State.
#3 for all of college football might be 2004 USC with Leinart, Bush & White. Their defense was stacked, too
. #3 for just the Big Ten is probably 1971 Nebraska. They are definitely in the top five of the Big Ten. STRONG consideration for being #2 on this list (or even #1) but I'm trying not to be a Homer.
#4 for everybody could be 2009 Alabama. 14-0 against a very tough SOS. #
4 for just the Big Ten... I think the Big Ten natives will say 1997 Michigan, who got the consolation "national championship" plaque for ducking out of the Bowl Coalition.
#5 for all of college football could be (don't fall off your seat) 1983 Auburn. They went 11-1 against
the toughest SOS in the history of college football. Think about that. That one loss kept them out of the National Championship game where Nebraska's "Scoring Explosion" fell to the Miami Hurricanes on a late tipped pass as Nebraska went for two. Others up for consideration are 2000 Oklahoma, 1972 USC, 1988 Notre Dame, 1974 Oklahoma, 1996 Florida and 1999 Florida State.
The #5 Big Ten team could be 1994 Penn State (although I think their argument is quite weak), or 1994 Nebraska (again with the homerism), or 1968 Ohio State (using my amazing google search powers for that one).
Frankly, I'm sick of the whining from Penn State Fan and Big Ten Fan about 1994 PSU getting "shafted" for National Championship consideration. 1994 Nebraska would have humiliated that PSU team, and 1994 Miami would have run roughshod over them, too. Consider this me throwing them a bone for an undefeated season.
Interesting side note to that 1994 season -
according to Steve Sipple in today's LITR Blog, Tom Osborne called Joe Paterno at the end of the 1994 regular season and tried to arrange a game between Nebraska and Penn State:
During the period leading to the bowl season, Tom Osborne wondered if there was any way NU and PSU could square off at a neutral site to determine the nation's (unofficial) best team.
So, he called up Joe Paterno, the Nittany Lions' wily and influential head coach.
"I thought, 'Well, if Joe kicked up a fuss and said, 'We deserve to play Nebraska,' somebody would've relented," Osborne recalled Tuesday during his radio show on the Husker Sports Network. "But (Paterno) said we were bound to this (Bowl Coalition) contract, and that's the way it was."
Couple of interesting things here - I think it's possible that T.O. was trying to dodge Miami. Dr. Tom had just lost seven straight bowl games (two of which were against Miami in the Orange Bowl) and it's well-known that we were pretty tired of having to play them on their home field over and over.
It's also possible JoePa's reticence to try to make a fuss was his attempt to dodge Nebraska, which was clearly a better team. Joe knew (although it turned out to be wrong) that if he won his game he'd get at least a split of the National Championship, and playing Nebraska greatly reduced his chances of sharing that title. As it turns out, the fact that Penn State never defeated a team ranked higher than 10th in the polls weighed heavily in Nebraska's favor, and the dominating 4th-quarter performance by the Huskers sealed the championship. Penn State finished a distant second in the polls despite going undefeated.
(Hey, it's summer ok? lol)
