Will NU football ever dominate again like in the 90s?

NUance

NUance

Assistant Coach
Will the Huskers ever have another decade of dominance like the 90s? Or was that a one time deal? I'm not sure any team could have as many wins as NU did in the 90s, while playing in a conference like the Big 10.

 
Its easy to fall and when you do the bigger you are the harder you fall, but there is always hope to get back up and find yourself back at the top. It won't be an easy road and it won't be a quick turnaround, but dominance is something that takes time to work at and takes patience. Nebraska will become a dominate football program again, all you need are people who believe it can happen.

 
Yeah, these things do seem to run in cycles. But I’m thinking we had several factors work in our favor back during the 90s—factors that we won’t see again. Here are three:

  • Fairly easy conf schedule in the 90s. OU was down. Rest of the Big 8 wasn’t much of a threat.
  • Can’t have prop 48 partial qualifiers anymore.
  • Seems to be a LOT more parity in college football now as compared to back then.


I wonder whether NU's dominance of the 90s can be repeated by any team. Look at USC's run a few years back. They were great for a few years. But USC's run wasn't even close to NU's run in the 90s.

 
If you really look at the league, we are not alone in the return to dominance boat. Teams like Notre Dame, Michigan, UCLA, Arizona State, Tenn, West Virgina, and Miami. I probably have left out some others but its team like that have shown some flashes of success but not a consistent return to the national spotlight, like Coqui said, its "how long will it take?" that is the real question.

@ Nuance : Yea but USC was scandalous. :)

 
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Get to that level again? Sure, but not quite the dominance, college football is a different beast now than it was in the 90's. NU needs to string together at least some BSC appearances while making a strong introduction into the Big 10 to see this thing take off. Programs like NU will get down but not out.

 
Maybe I'm nuts but I think we have a real shot at that real soon. I think Bo is as good on one side of the ball as TO was the other. NU gets a McBride (very good but maybe not great) equivelent as OC & I think we've very close to being there.

TO's big run was mostly superb coaching orientated (no top ten recruiting class 1990 through 1995) and Bo's arguably even a better recruiter than TO was.

If Beck shines, NU is gonna steamroll the Big10.

 
When you look at Ohio State of the 2000's, it's similar to the Huskers of the 90's. They didn't get the 3 MNCs - and weren't "quite" as dominant, but Tressel's sitting at 106-22 since he got there, which is certainly on pace to match TO. They did it under the current BCS system, with far more restrictions than our teams of the 90's.

This is all very hypothetical, and I don't know much about the bowl tie-ins back in the 90's, but its reasonable to believe that (under pre-BSC bowls) in 2006 they would have played someone other than a 12-1 Florida team in their bowl. A win there and they finish 13-0 with a 2nd MNC. Same could be said for 2007 - had they been defending the NC, they might have played someone other than an 11-2 LSU in their bowl and finished 12-1 which would have been enough to be voted #1 for a 3rd MNC that year.

...point is, there isn't much seperating Ohio State of the 2000's from the Huskers of the 90's. Now, if those two teams played each other I think we all know who would win, but as for the results on the field, the margin isn't massive --- so yeah, I could see it happening again. It's unlikely however.

 
My guess is if SC could not do it, with all the NFL talent they had, no one will again.

We can become a dominant team, but to the level of the mid 90's I seriously doubt we or anyone else will come close to going 60-3.

As stated we find an offense and we can be a very good team, competing/in the hunt for NC's most years. Still a lot of work, but I think the base is there as long as we are able to keep Coach Osborne on board.

 
I agree. If we can make a run like SC has had, that's about the height of domination one can expect - and it was a damn fine run. Which hasn't really ended either. They've won 9 and 8 games the last two seasons. That's what I want to see out of Nebraska. Win 8 or 9 every year at least and be able to make some runs occasionally. Some down years are inevitable too.

Honestly, if we hold the team up to higher standards in the W/L category, it isn't realistic and it would be to the detriment of the program

 
nuance said:
Yeah, these things do seem to run in cycles. But I’m thinking we had several factors work in our favor back during the 90s—factors that we won’t see again. Here are three:

  • Fairly easy conf schedule in the 90s. OU was down. Rest of the Big 8 wasn’t much of a threat.
  • Can’t have prop 48 partial qualifiers anymore.
  • Seems to be a LOT more parity in college football now as compared to back then.


I wonder whether NU's dominance of the 90s can be repeated by any team. Look at USC's run a few years back. They were great for a few years. But USC's run wasn't even close to NU's run in the 90s.
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What you're saying is what I believe, as well.

Parity is the part that is especially noteworthy. The difference between the haves and have-nots from the 90s is a night & day difference from what the way things are now.

That said, I do believe that power is cyclical. You can't expect to dominate forever and all good things must come to end.

Can Nebraska ever dominate again like they did in the 90s? Sure, why not? Technically speaking it is possible. Will they? Well, that's a different argument altogether. I think the 90s was a perfect storm of coaching and player talent for Nebraska, and I just don't think we'll see something like that again for any team. If you really take a deep look at the accomplishments of those 90s teams, it's hard to believe ANYBODY could do that again.

Also, I will make a counter to one point you made. Even though Oklahoma was down for most of the 90s, Nebraska faced four top 10 teams in 1995, three of which were from the Big 8 conference in Kansas, Kansas State, and Colorado.

 
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