1995 Nebraska vs. 2001 Miami

[Seaton]

Both teams are considered to be among the best of all time. So my question is, if it had been the 1995 Huskers (rather than the 2001 group) that showed up in the Rose Bowl to play Miami for the national title, which team would you pick and why?

[74Hunter]

Both teams are considered to be among the best of all time. So my question is, if it had been the 1995 Huskers (rather than the 2001 group) that showed up in the Rose Bowl to play Miami for the national title, which team would you pick and why?

95 Huskers. Because they were the greatest college football team ever assembled.

 

Period.

[Saunders]

Both teams are considered to be among the best of all time. So my question is, if it had been the 1995 Huskers (rather than the 2001 group) that showed up in the Rose Bowl to play Miami for the national title, which team would you pick and why?

1995 Nebraska. Why? Because they were better.

 

End of Thread.

[RockyMountainOySker]

'95 Skers

Reasons:

1) Our defense shut down the best offense in football easily and I would bet they would have been able to do that to '01 Miami as well.

2) We would have been able to run the ball on '01 Miami helping out the defense also. Our o-line was dominate.

3) I'm a Nebraska fan.

[Landlord]

To someone on the outside these surely sound like homer posts, but that's because I frankly don't even see how it's worth discussing. But here I go anyways:

 

 

1. Nebraska destroyed everyone they played, including four top-10 teams. Miami barely survived two of their games, and the schedule doesn't seem to be (from my limited knowledge) as tough. Our closest win was by 14 points, due to late scores against 3rd stringers.

 

2. We would play an excess of 100+ players per game, going to 3rd and 4th string and running simple plays and still blew teams up.

 

3. Everyone points to Miami's insane draft class. So what? We're talking about the successes of the college team in terms of wins and losses and how good of a team they were.

 

4. Our offense was good. Really, really good. We averaged over 7.0 ypc on the season, despite ALWAYS running the ball and having teams load the box with 10 defenders. We didn't give up a single quarterback sack all year. We averaged 29.8 points per first half (untouchable statistic), and 53ppg. Average margin of victory was over 38 points (again, despite playing legitimate scrubs). I would compare Miami's stats, but what's the point? They are quite inferior. Their defense was statistically a bit better, and they might have had a better defense, who knows, but my guess is that our numbers are inflated from playing an insane number of back-up players so much. Either way, both defenses were staught. Oh, and Nebraska's special teams were insane, we gave up 12 total punt return yards all year.

 

 

 

I'm sure someone with better knowledge of both teams can provide even more reasons.

[Blackshirt316]

Nebraska would do to Miami what they did to Florida. I'm not wholly convinced that that '95 Florida squad couldn't beat that 2001 Miami team in a close game.

 

That 2001 season may have been the weakest year in the past 25 seasons as far as depth and quality teams. The fact that our squad that couldn't even make the CCG and got blown out by Colorado was still picked as the 2nd best team in the country says a whole heck of a lot about the quality of teams that Miami squad faced that year.. and almost lost to a couple of em.

 

Somehow I don't see our '95 team having to pull out a squeaker against 2001 Virginia Tech.

[VA Husker Fan]

 

1. Nebraska destroyed everyone they played, including four top-10 teams. Miami barely survived two of their games, and the schedule doesn't seem to be (from my limited knowledge) as tough. Our closest win was by 14 points, due to late scores against 3rd stringers.

I'm not sure how true that Washington State statement is. I don't know who was in on defense, but Frazier threw a TD pass in the 4th quarter when it was 28-14. I doubt we had our 3rd string D in with our 1st O on the other side.

 

The other danger is comparing teams more than a couple years apart. If you put the 1971 Huskers against 2001 Miami, those Huskers would get blown out. Size, speed, conditioning, etc would all heavily favor Miami. But against their competition of the era, 71 Nebraska stands out.

 

95 and 01 aren't so far apart so it's not too bad to compare directly.

 

Frazier vs. Dorsey? No contest, Frazier was far more a force on offense.

 

Phillips/Green vs. Portis? Closer, but I'll take ours.

 

O-line? McKinnie was the best of all, but Graham, Taylor and Dishman probably makes ours a better unit.

 

TE/receivers? Shockey is better than anything we had.

 

D line? Did they have anything to compare to Tomich, Wistrom, and the Peter brothers?

 

LBs: Vilma was a beast, Farley was awfully good though too

 

DBs: They had 3 first rounders, topping Minter and Veland.

 

Miami had 6 first team All Americans (2 of those special teams), we had 3. I think we had a lot more depth though. We don't skip a beat when our probably Heisman winner gets suspended. We proved the year before that we can weather losing our All American QB. Other than maybe O-line, I'm not sure there really was a position that we couldn't afford to lose the starter.

[VA Husker Fan]

Oh yeah, my conclusion is that we were stronger. I really think the Frazier/Dorsey difference is the biggest. Even Berringer over Dorsey would've been enough.

[REDSTEEL]

Both teams are considered to be among the best of all time. So my question is, if it had been the 1995 Huskers (rather than the 2001 group) that showed up in the Rose Bowl to play Miami for the national title, which team would you pick and why?

 

The Husker team faced a better Miami defense in 1994 (Warren Sapp, Ray Lewis) then Miami had in 2001 and Nu scored in the 20's and the 1995 team was better offensively then that version.

 

Now if the 1995 Nebraska version faced the 2001 Nebraska version, fans of Nebraska 2001 would look at Colorado game fondly since they would be embarrassed by what the 1995 version would do to them.

 

Now what would happen if 1994 miami defense played against the 2001 miami version?

[suh_fan93]

Nebraska's offensive and defensive lines are the two sole reasons why we'd win this. In '97 Nebraska vs Tennessee fashion.

 

I don't think we'd beat them like we did Florida in '96 but the 2001 Miami team would be humbled.

[GMoose]

I think too often people draw the conclusion that 01 Miami would beat 95 Nebraska because 01 Miami beat 01 Nebraska. Yes, they beat us good. But that was NOT the 95 Nebraska team. If they ran option attacks in the NFL we would have had a historic draft with that unit too.

 

1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers, of course.

[hskrpwr13]

 

1. Nebraska destroyed everyone they played, including four top-10 teams. Miami barely survived two of their games, and the schedule doesn't seem to be (from my limited knowledge) as tough. Our closest win was by 14 points, due to late scores against 3rd stringers.

I'm not sure how true that Washington State statement is. I don't know who was in on defense, but Frazier threw a TD pass in the 4th quarter when it was 28-14. I doubt we had our 3rd string D in with our 1st O on the other side.

 

 

Going off the top of my head, either NU first scored 1 TD or WAZZU scored 1 TD off of a long run (like 80 yrds). Eventually, the score was 28-7. After that the teams traded TDs, and NU had the ball at appx the WAZZU 5 yrd line with a minute to go, but chose not to score again. NU was never in danger of losing the game. It was just a matter of whether they were going to ONLY win by 2 scores or 3.

[junior4949]

The 2001 Husker team didn't have a defense. CU put 60+ up on us. If CU could do it and Miami could only rack up in the 30's on a team with a poor defense, then I like the 95 teams chances. I mean Bohl was fired for a reason bringing Bo into the Nebraska the first time for a reason. Even though the 2001 team played in the NC game, I don't even think they make the top 15-20 in terms of best Husker teams.

[1995 Huskers]

If the 2001 Nebraska team had Tom Osborne coaching they would have won...period

[T_O_Bull]

1995 Huskers. No brag, just fact.

T_O_B