1995 Nebraska vs. 2001 Miami

[Vince R.]

I'm sure Nebraska has been asked to sign off on a 30 for 30. I don't think Nebraska wants to relive the scandals that went on during that time.

[Count 'Bility]

 

Ran across this on google.

They making a documentary on The U part 2.

where is 95 Nebraska team at? If they were the best they would have a 30 for 30, as they should that team was awesome.

Miami had a better backfield with Portis, McGahee, and Frank Gore.

Dorsey was ok..his weapons made him look great.

That blackshirt secondary was good, but you seriously think Ed Reed, Antrell Rolle, Phillip Buchanon, James Lewis, Devin Hester, and Sean Taylor would be backups behind the blackshirts??

Nebraska was physical. Miami had more track speed..

Track speed is great until you get punched in the mouth

yeah. Ask ray lewis, rohan marley, warren sapp, malcom pearson and so on.

[HuskerfaninOkieland]

The '95 Huskers would steamroll the 01 Canes. Period. Everyone thought the Gators would run us ragged. Ask the 95 Gators how that game turned out

[T_O_Bull]

 

Would the best college football team of all time need a fluke play to help beat unranked Boston College?

 

thanks for the visual...i still remember the fluke play the 95 huskers had on the #2 team in the nation that was gonna dominate the 95 huskers...most of the team got their hands on the "non-hiesman" worthy quarterback, decided not to tackle him, and watch him run another 65 yards and score...

 

 

:laughpound

 

95 huskers can't hold a candlestick to the hurricanes.... :hellloooo :hellloooo

 

[T_O_Bull]

 

 

Would the best college football team of all time need a fluke play to help beat unranked Boston College?

 

thanks for the visual...i still remember the fluke play the 95 huskers had on the #2 team in the nation that was gonna dominate the 95 huskers...most of the team got their hands on the "non-hiesman" worthy quarterback, decided not to tackle him, and watch him run another 65 yards and score...

 

 

:laughpound

 

95 huskers can't hold a candlestick to the hurricanes.... :hellloooo :hellloooo

 

 

What ??????????????????? Please explain.

[dvdcrr]

My best guess is that the 95 team would have been 21-28 pts better than the 2001 team in that game.

[RunMickeyRun02]

95 team would have beat the poop out of Miami.

 

iirc they only trailed twice all season, agaisnt Wazzoo and Florida and beat every team by at least two touchdowns.

[HuskerinSunDiego]

95 team would have beat the poop out of Miami.

 

iirc they only trailed twice all season, agaisnt Wazzoo and Florida and beat every team by at least two touchdowns.

 

Do you recall that WSU game, where we fumbled on the five yard line twice. If no fumbles, we win by 24. If that happens, the closest a team came to us that season was a loss by 23 points!

[presidentjlh]

No team would ever beat the 1995 Huskers, unless you maybe extrapolated the pure differences in athletics today.

 

Even then, I'd favor 95 Huskers.

 

There was no team more dominant in the history of the sport. 4 Top 10 teams faced, all crushed.

[RunMickeyRun02]

 

95 team would have beat the poop out of Miami.

 

iirc they only trailed twice all season, agaisnt Wazzoo and Florida and beat every team by at least two touchdowns.

 

Do you recall that WSU game, where we fumbled on the five yard line twice. If no fumbles, we win by 24. If that happens, the closest a team came to us that season was a loss by 23 points!

 

 

No, I had forgotten about that, thanks for reminding me.

[Count 'Bility]

Played 4 teams in the top ten-AND FINISHED THE YEAR IN THE TOP TEN (since " at the time they played" seems to come up a lot) nebraska won those games by an average score of 49-19. Think about that a sec.

 

This is probably the most key stat in why 1995 Nebraska is deemed the best snd most dominant team ever.

[TGHusker]

We'd see the UM players gasping for air again as Warren Sapp did in 94. Only this time by the end of 2nd quarter

[T_O_Bull]

Don't remember seeing this before.

 

 

 

January 15, 1996Headed For A Fall?Nebraska may win another national title, but the days when such a colossus ruled the game are overTim Layden

 

It was tempting enough to become enthralled with Nebraska's brilliance in its 62-24 Fiesta Bowl humiliation of Florida on Jan. 2. It was impossible not to marvel at the performances of senior quarterback Tommie Frazier, junior I-back Lawrence Phillips and the Cornhuskers' swift, lethal pass rush. Even though Florida was a very good team, it left Tempe, Ariz., in little pieces.

 

In winning its second consecutive national championship, Nebraska was transcendent that night in the desertand you're not going to see the likes of that team again. All season the Huskers trampled the opposition like a colossus, but in the fall the supremely talented Frazier, along with 10 other senior starters, will be gone, Phillips will probably be in the NFL, and Nebraska's unique talent base will have been eroded by the rules of the new Big 12the Big Eight plus Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M and Texas Techwhich begins play in 1996.

 

Sure, Nebraska will always be one of the most powerful programs in college footballalong with teams like Florida State, Michigan and Notre Damebut beginning next fall the Cornhuskers will be part of the pack, fighting with Florida (again), Tennessee, Michigan, Syracuse, Miami and, who knows, maybe even Kansas State, for a national title.

 

That is why Nebraska coach Tom Osborne, still soaked and shivering from the obligatory ice-water dousing by his players, used his Fiesta Bowl postgame press conference to grumble, in NCAA-speak, about preserving his program's might. He launched into a plea to the presidents of the Big 12 to reconsider their recent decision to limit the recruitment of student-athletes who were once known as Prop 48s.

 

We already knew that Osborne was not much of a celebrator. But his timing on this issue seemed awkward and inappropriate. His team had just become the first in 39 years to win back-to-back consensus national titles. The Cornhuskers had fallen three points short of winning three consecutive national titles (they lost the 1994 Orange Bowl to Florida State 18-16), which has never been done. The morning after the Fiesta Bowl, Osborne did call the 1995 Huskers his best team, yet rather than bask in their accomplishment, he steered a captive audience to an arcane topic. It was something he had done frequently in the days and weeks leading to the game, fearing his giant program would soon be diminished.

 

That the Cornhuskers have been so dominant during a period in which NCAA-mandated football downsizing has tended to create parity is remarkable. The limit of 85 football scholarships per school (down from 95 in 1991 and 105 in '76), in conjunction with the raising of admission standards and the tightening of recruiting rules, has helped programs such as Kansas State, Oregon, Virginia Tech and, most famously, Northwestern, rise to prominence.

 

Nebraska has flourished as a superpower during that time because the Cornhusker program benefits from the convergence of many supporting structures. The Huskers have a smart, stubborn coach with 23 years of experience; unshakable faith in a football system built on the option and the running game and brutal, fast-paced practices; and facilities that include a 30,000-square-foot weight room, which is advertised as the largest among NCAA schools. The only major public university in the state, Nebraska has virtually an open admissions policy and low tuition (less than $3,000 for in-state students), which brings in walk-ons by the dozen. (Nebraska had 141 players on its Fiesta Bowl roster, a number reminiscent of Bear Bryant's days at Alabama but unusual in 1996. By contrast, Florida had 94.) Nebraska also willingly accepts athletes who represent academic and/or social risks. Finally, there comes an occasional gift, a once-in-a-generation talent like Frazier, who arrived in Lincoln from Bradenton, Fla., in 1992.

 

"It's a machine up there," says Colorado coach Rick Neuheisel admiringly. "I know because I've got to beat them."

 

Still, Osborne dourly stumps. And with good reason. The loss of Frazier, the team's undisputed leader, is almost immeasurable"Half an offense, by himself," said Colorado State coach Sonny Lubick. Without Frazier, Nebraska wouldn't have been competitive in its loss to No. 1-rankcd Florida State in the '94 Orange Bowl; the Huskers probably wouldn't have beaten Miami in the '95 Orange Bowl to win the national title; and there wouldn't have been talk of a dynasty coming out of the Fiesta Bowl. And for those who thought that Cornhusker freshman I-back Ahman Green was as good as Phillips, the Fiesta Bowl should have proved that Green is good, but Phillips, who rushed for 165 yards and scored three touchdowns against Florida, is exceptional.

 

Still, what most threatens Nebraska's championship streak is the Big 12's policy on accepting partial and non-qualifiers under NCAA freshman eligibility guidelines. (A partial qualifier is a prospective athlete who meets only one of two minimum academic requirementsgrade point average or standardized test score. The minimums are a 2.0 GPA with a 900 on the SAT or 21 on the ACT; or a 2.5 GPA with a 700 SAT or 17 ACT. A non-qualifier meets neither standard. If a school accepts a partial or non-qualifier, the athlete is ineligible for athletics for one year). On Dec. 20 the Big 12 presidents voted unanimously to limit each school to four partial qualifiers per year (two men, two women) and no more than one in a single sport. Non-qualifiers were excluded entirely.

 

In the Fiesta Bowl, Nebraska started four partial or non-qualifiers (cornerback Michael Booker, defensive tackle Christian Peter, cornerback Tyrone Williams and defensive end Jared Tomich), and two others, wideout Reggie Baul and outside linebacker Jamel Williams, played almost as much as the starters. According to Nebraska officials there were at least 12 partial or non-qualifiers in the program last fall. "Among elite schools Nebraska is a true haven for partial and non-qualifiers," said the coach of another elite school.

 

Osborne's view on partial and non-qualifiershe calls them "Props," harking back to Proposition 48, which created the aforementioned eligibility guidelines that affected incoming freshmen in 1986is similar to his reasoning for reinstating Phillips, who was suspended from the team after he was arrested for assaulting his former girlfriend on Sept. 11. (Phillips eventually pleaded no contest and was restored to the team on Oct. 24.) In both cases, the argument goes, kids were given academic opportunities they might not otherwise have found. And Nebraska landed impact players.

 

"I hope [the Big 12 presidents] will take a look at the fact that the Big Eight has four teams in the top 10 [Nebraska, No. 5 Colorado, No. 7 Kansas State and No. 9 Kansas]," said Osborne, after the Fiesta Bowl. "We did it with Big Eight rules." (Actually, the Big Eight has no policy on partial and non-qualifiers.) If the Big 12 does not amend its rules, Osborne could threaten to pull Nebraska out of the conference. But it is unlikely that the Big East, Big Ten or Pac-10, the other major conferences that have no policy on partial and non-qualifiers, would welcome Nebraska because of its modest academic standards or remote location.

 

Prop 48which is scheduled to be replaced by Prop 16 this summeris still one of the hot-button issues in college sports: Who deserves an athletic scholarship? But in Nebraska's case, consider this: Two of the four partial or non-qualifiers who started in the Fiesta Bowl (Tyrone Williams and Peter) were among the five Cornhuskers charged with crimes in the last 22 months. Yet, if there have been occasional problems with partial and non-qualifiers at Nebraska, there has also been a significant athletic benefit. Both Williamses, Booker and 1994 cornerback Barron Miles (also a partial qualifier) were among the players who upgraded Nebraska's defense from the plodding bunch that couldn't keep up with Miami and Florida State in the late 1980s and early '90s to the swift, attacking unit that crushed Florida.

 

Osborne is no fool. Nebraska's hold on greatness is tenuous; that large gap between the Cornhuskers and everybody else could close quickly. Take away Frazier, Phillips and the partial and non-qualifiers, and Nebraska's 12-0 record this season could have been 10-2, which might have put the Huskers in a meaningless Cotton Bowl matchup instead of in a showdown for the national championship.

 

Osborne's staff is trying desperately to sign a quarterback who will be able to start next year as a freshman, just as Frazier did in '92. But a find like Frazier is rare, so there's a good chance that next year's Sugar Bowl, the site of the national championship game, will be played without Nebraska.

 

Florida will challenge for the national title again. Don't laugh. Think of the Gators as the football parallel to Duke's 1990 basketball team, which was drilled 103-73 by UNLV in the NCAA championship game and then came back the next year to beat the Runnin' Rebels en route to the first of its back-to-back titles. Gator quarterback Danny Wuerffel returns, along with two of his top three receivers and five other offensive starters. Yet for Florida to reach the title gamethe Southeastern Conference title gameit will again have to dispose of Tennessee and its quarterback, Peyton Manning, whose poise and maturity only make him seem as if he's 30 years old and an NFL veteran. And Florida will travel to Knoxville this fall.

 

Or perhaps the national champion will come out of the Big East, where Syracuse quarterback Donovan McNabb might have the impact on his team that Frazier had on the Huskers, and where Miami has found a new quarterback in Ryan Clement and retains several experienced starters on both sides of the ball.

 

Assuming Michigan running back Tshimanga Biakabutuka doesn't go to the NFL and quarterback Scott Dreisbach recovers from the injured thumb on his right hand, the Wolverines will be the Big Ten favorite. Kansas State's nonleague schedule is again laughably soft, and next season Nebraska must travel to Manhattan, Kans., to play the Wildcats.

 

The field is open again. Keep your '96 Fiesta Bowl videotapes in a safe place, because you won't see dominance like that again. There are no more Nebraskas. Not even in Nebraska.

 

I had forgotten how much Nebraska hate was out there. This guy is just one of many who have their nose planted in the butt of any coach who

will give them a great quote. Not sure if TO ever gave a great quote. This article is just one more example of why the only issue of SI that

is credible year in and year out is the 'Swimsuit Issue.' SI is right up there as Victoria's Secret as a great source for sport's news.

T_O_B