The 1997 National Championship Discussion Thread

[QMany]

EDIT: Knapp said everything that needs to be said. Lock it up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and F*CK Michigan.

[kornhusker]

He's got a point. Michigan rolled through their schedule and never had to squeak by anyone. We've been living a 15 year myth folks. Show's over

http://michigansportscenter.com/football/1997-michigan-football-schedule

 

Looks to me like Michigan had a couple squeakers that year. They barely beat Washintgon St. definitely a weaker team than Tennessee. Nebraska beat them handily.

[Savage Husker]

look at the end of season records of michigan's opponents and look at nebraska's. they also beat Kstate who finished top 5? top 7 for sure. michigan beat a handful of ranked teams AT THE TIME, but when the season was all said and done, only 2-3 teams ranked inside the top 25. no way in heck michigan's defense was going to stop our ground game. woodson would have meant nothing in the secondary unless he's coming up making a tackle, and if a corner is making a tackle, it's AT LEAST 5 yards up field. I also remember that season's rose bowl where wsu got hosed out of a final play and the refs called the game. fast forward to 2010 and refs put 1 second back on the clock for a team to run one last play aka kick gw fg

[Mavric]

I've always thought it was somewhat ironic that Michigan cries about us jumping over them in the coaches poll even though they won their bowl game. Apparently they conveniently forget how they got to #1 in the first place.

[T_O_Bull]

I'll take the coaches poll over a gang of sports writers any day.

The way the Rose Bowl ended that year Ryan Leaf should have had one more play. The Ref's blew it.

T_O_B

[Haspula]

Michigan faced a #8 wsu and barely squeaked by. No reason why Michigan should get the 97 title

[Big Red 40]

It's pretty simple. Nebraska played the #3 team in the country, Tennessee, with Peyton Manning, Peerless Price, and a host of future NFL stars on their roster. We destroyed them.

 

Michigan ducked out of the national championship game - not entirely their fault, but they contributed to the decision - because the Big Ten and Pac-10 felt the Rose Bowl was more important than joining the Bowl Alliance. In their little Rose Bowl game with everything on the line, they barely beat Ryan Leaf and.... nobody else. No other star or even decent player was on that Wash. State roster. And they eked out a win, and they claim their title was "better?"

 

They can keep their little 11th-grade shop class wooden plaque that says "National Champions" on it. It's a bone we can throw a team that hasn't won anything of significance in 70 years.

 

We'll take the giant crystal trophy, though. That's the real trophy, the trophy the real champ gets, and it's sitting in our trophy case as I type this. I'll go down to the stadium and take a picture of it if this writer wants to see what a real trophy looks like.

Get outta here with all your facts and stuff man!

[Joe_5700]

I liked how our guys wanted to play Michigan after destroying Tennessee. I didn't hear the same chatter out of Michigan that's for sure. Didn't Vegas even lay odds on the mythical game with Nebraska as a favorite? Does anyone have the clip where Jason Peter gives out his home address back in NJ where Nebraska could play Michigan?

 

Nebraska would have won by 2 TDs minimum. It is not even worth debating.

[Husker66]

i would have loved to see us play michigan....and so would that 97 team

[GSG]

Other things to mention:

 

We played 1 additional game.

 

Our average margin of victory was 30.23 points. Michigan's was 17.33.

[Count 'Bility]

We did have a "close" game at Colorado too. CU was fighting for bowl eligibility, and the game really never was as close as the score. They did get the ball back with seconds left down only 3. Of course we all know about the Missouri game and what happened there. Central Florida had Daunte Culpepper as qb, and we trailed 17-14 at half, but dominated the second half. That game never felt in question. The game at Washington we pretty much dominated. IIRC, Wash got it to 21-14 at one time, but a couple 4th quarter field goal sealed the deal. Washington also got lucky on a couple deep TD's anyway. It was Scott Frost's coming out party. Other than that, we pretty much manhandled everyone.

[Branno]

You've got to love that he takes a championship away from Nebraska because of the miracle catch in 97, but confers the championship in 82 to Penn St because they beat Nebraska head to head after catching a pass 5 feet out of bounds.

 

f#*k him.

[Conga3]

He's got a point. Michigan rolled through their schedule and never had to squeak by anyone. We've been living a 15 year myth folks. Show's over

http://michigansport...otball-schedule

 

Looks to me like Michigan had a couple squeakers that year. They barely beat Washintgon St. definitely a weaker team than Tennessee. Nebraska beat them handily.

Don't be discouraged by this accountability. The rest of us enjoy your style.

[Chaddyboxer]

Other things to mention:

 

We played 1 additional game.

 

Our average margin of victory was 30.23 points. Michigan's was 17.33.

Damn those facts! Damn them!!!

[SoCal Husker Terry]

Yeah, that crooked field at Penn State was not too cool...