Who would have won in 1997: Michigan vs Nebraska?
- Thread starter saturdaysarebet
- Start date
Now its the off season! Meatchicken. No, cornsuckers. Wait, who cares? Maybe I don't. Anyway, happy hump day y'all!
Nebraska would have murdered them.
This was what I was thinking. Nebraska was a very physical football team then.
This.
They beat two Top 6 teams (KSU and Tenn) by an avg of 4 TDs and murdered everyone else except for a somewhat close game with a 7-5 Mizzou.
Mich was very good and especially on defense but they probably would not have been able to hang with Nebraska for all 4 qtrs.
To develop this point a little bit more - and it is well-known here that I am NO Nebraska apologist - consider:
NEBRASKA OPPONENTS TOTAL DEFENSE:
Kansas State (10-1) - 256.8 ypg, 14.5 ppg - Nebraska drilled them for 56 points and 473 total yards in a game that was over before the 4th quarter began
Texas A/M (9-4) - 315.1 ypg, 17.3 ppg - Nebraska smashed them for 54 points and 536 yards despite the game being over well before the end of the first half (37-3 halftime score)
Tennessee (11-2) - 334.8 ypg, 20.3 ppg - Nebraska bludgeoned Peyton and Phatimus for 42 points and 534 yards
Those are the 3 best defenses on decent teams Nebraska played, and they massacred them for 152 points and topped all three average yards surrendered by MORE THAN TWO HUNDRED YARDS EACH.
The "tough" Big 10 went 2-5 in bowls that year, Michigan scraping by (admittedly a decent) Wazzu team with Ryan Leaf and Purdue beating the Pokes by 13. Yeah, the B12 went 2-3, winning two Bowl Alliance games in blowouts. And while I know you cannot use the transitive property to argue, it gets more realistic when you have multiple cases.
K-State massacred Syracuse, who clobbered Wisconsin, who kept the Michigan game at ten.
Washington absolutely murdered Michigan State, who only lost to Michigan by 16.
Nebraska beat Washington by two TDs in Seattle in September.
Washington also played Wazzu to within 6 and Michigan beat Wazzu by 5.
Bear this in mind: Washington State (for the most part) outplayed Michigan. Ryan Leaf shredded their Heisman Trophy defensive winner for 331 yards. Michigan AVERAGED giving up 8.9 ppg - and Wazzu doubled that. Michigan AVERAGED giving up 206 ypg - and Wazzu nearly doubled that, too. Now...Michigan DID hold Wazzu (42.5 ppg) well below that total, but those numbers were drastically inflated by a 77-7 win over SW La, a 58-0 win over Boise St, and a 63-37 drilling of 3-8 Cal. Nebraska AVERAGED their total almost every game, Wazzu didn't.
Personally, I thought Florida and Florida State were the two best teams in the country, but Florida had a monumental letdown against LSU (DiNardo's great win) and FSU buckled in the 2nd half against the Gators. Michigan was probably no better than 4th or possibly 5th that year.
Throw in the fact Osborne was retiring and would have motivated them........
By the way, MOST of the assessments on Nebraska that year fixate on one particular game, their narrow win over Missouri thanks to a kicked ball. I know Michigan partisans in particular have been whining about that for years and about their drop in the polls.
But despite "they nearly lost", Nebraska had 528 total yards to Missouri's 386, the time of possession was almost exactly half for each team, and people automatically think, "well, Missouri, a 7-5 team that nearly beat Nebraska." Mizzou got 38 points in that game....but they averaged 33.5 ppg, this wasn't the 80s and early 90s Missouri....and they averaged 422 ypg (and the 386 included overtime).
The other points in Michigan's favor - and I don't automatically dispute them - are "they had two common opponents, Colorado and Baylor, and Michigan beat both by more than Nebraska did." But Nebraska played Colorado ON THE ROAD at the end of the season and led them, 27-10, until CU scored two TDs in the final 3 minutes to make it look close. Michigan played CU in their opener AT HOME, and the general consensus is that games played later in the year are more indicative of the kind of team you have than week one usually is. Michigan then beat Baylor by 35 points AT HOME in September (week 2) while Nebraska beat them by "only" 28 points on the road in October. Again, I don't think this common opponents argument is as persuasive as if they'd both played both between October 15 and November 22. Michigan played ONE team ranked at the end of the year on the road, Penn State, and it's where their power came. Penn State was an overrated #2 on the day Michigan beat them, the same day Nebraska struggled against Missouri. But Penn State lost a blowout to Michigan St three weeks later that was worse than their loss to Michigan and wound up getting blown off the field against Florida in the Citrus Bowl. Nebraska, by contrast, butchered two teams in the top ten (K State, Vols) and beat three other teams in the Top 25 away from home.
We'll never know, and I likely would have been pulling for Michigan in such a game. But I honestly don't think it would have been all that close, either.
But despite "they nearly lost", Nebraska had 528 total yards to Missouri's 386, the time of possession was almost exactly half for each team, and people automatically think, "well, Missouri, a 7-5 team that nearly beat Nebraska." Mizzou got 38 points in that game....but they averaged 33.5 ppg, this wasn't the 80s and early 90s Missouri....and they averaged 422 ypg (and the 386 included overtime).
The other points in Michigan's favor - and I don't automatically dispute them - are "they had two common opponents, Colorado and Baylor, and Michigan beat both by more than Nebraska did." But Nebraska played Colorado ON THE ROAD at the end of the season and led them, 27-10, until CU scored two TDs in the final 3 minutes to make it look close. Michigan played CU in their opener AT HOME, and the general consensus is that games played later in the year are more indicative of the kind of team you have than week one usually is. Michigan then beat Baylor by 35 points AT HOME in September (week 2) while Nebraska beat them by "only" 28 points on the road in October. Again, I don't think this common opponents argument is as persuasive as if they'd both played both between October 15 and November 22. Michigan played ONE team ranked at the end of the year on the road, Penn State, and it's where their power came. Penn State was an overrated #2 on the day Michigan beat them, the same day Nebraska struggled against Missouri. But Penn State lost a blowout to Michigan St three weeks later that was worse than their loss to Michigan and wound up getting blown off the field against Florida in the Citrus Bowl. Nebraska, by contrast, butchered two teams in the top ten (K State, Vols) and beat three other teams in the Top 25 away from home.
We'll never know, and I likely would have been pulling for Michigan in such a game. But I honestly don't think it would have been all that close, either.
I missed virtually all of four seasons in 2001-2004, not because we were bad, but because for the first two years, I was in medical school, the third year I was on the West Coast, which royally screws with your head trying to watch games (kickoff at 9 am?), and in 2004 I was unemployed and moved the weekend Brodie Croyle got hurt, and though I was unemployed I was busy doing things most weekends.
I missed a good portion of the 2006 games because I had to work every Saturday that fall except the one where we moved, and in 2007, I only got to see the late games because I was at work and we didn’t have a TV. That’s when I discovered game threads on this board.
Seriously, I wasn’t cutting out, access was much tougher back than to come by. We didn’t have phones that we carried with us that could show us the game at any time of day as we do now. The only reason I caught most of our games in 2005 is because I was NOT working most Saturdays.
I saw more games in 2005 than I did in 1997-2004 combined. and 2005 was my last year of college.
You obviously did not miss very much ha ha.
I can pull off a selmaesque memory and actually name the games I saw.
1997 - zero games
1998 - zero games
1999 - one game SEC championship
2000 - zero, I did see the PR against Ucla so I saw the only highlight
2001 - 2 games Ucla and USCe
2002 - 2 games Hawaii, barn
2003 - 4 games Arky, tennessee, ole miss, uga
2004 - zero games
2005 - at least half of every game, but 2 because they were PPV.
You saw one of the best games of that era with that SEC Championship beat down on Fla/CSS
The ‘99 regular season game in the swamp was an amazing game though. If you’re never seen it in full and need to kill some time one day check it out.
Everything else you didn’t miss much…lol
My ex-wife was a band member who saw a lot of football games and was a casual fan. She didn't watch many, but she'd watch games with me passively.
That victory over Florida in the Swamp, she turned to me the moment it ended and said, "That's the best, most exciting sporting contest I've ever seen in my life."
I'd have to go with Nebraska, although surprisingly Osborne had a losing record in bowl games. Hard to believe possible from a coach who had a .836 lifetime winning percentage.
Yeah, up to a point.
But Bryant was 15-12-2 and more of a legend than Osborne was. Bowl games were.....well, when Duffy Daugherty was proposing his 16-team playoff back in 1966, one of the points a number of coaches not named Bryant were making was that a bowl game was almost like a second season in that you took a team firing on all cylinders on November 30 - and didn't play for a month. And let's face it, Saban didn't have the best record in New Orleans the party town, either.
Everyone remembers the blowouts or "wasn't all that close" Nebraska bowls, but most of them were good performances where they just lost:
3 points to Arizona St (1975)
7 points to Oklahoma (1978)
3 points to Houston (1979)
7 points to Clemson in a national title game (1981)
1 point to Miami in a national title game (1983)
4 points to Michigan (1985)
3 points to Florida St (1987)
Now....they did get blasted in five bowl games in a row (1988-92), but give Osborne some credit, after he lost to Miami and Washington both in 1991 (the year both won the national title), he went out and recruited some speed, and it only took 2 years to scare the hell out of FSU in a title game. I've never said Osborne was a lousy coach, but I make no apologies for saying he ain't among the ten best ever.
Because he ain'
1997 Nebraska, let's face it, they won a share of the title mostly because by that time Nebraska enjoyed the powerhouse reputation that accompanied Alabama in the 70s and 10s, Miami in the 80s, and Oklahoma and USC in the 00s. If you've won a couple of titles or delivered a mind-blowing performance, you subconsciously get the benefit of the doubt as being "the best" even if you don't deserve it. Just four years earlier, pundits were saying, "Nobody wants to see Florida St skull drag Nebraska again"; but by 1997, the assumption was, 'You know, if Ahman Green hadn't missed the Big 12 title game, Nebraska might be going for their fourth in a row."
I DO think the 1995 team is overrated in the larger scheme of history, not that they weren't good, but their reputation is based entirely on one game; but that doesn't mean their teams in 93-01 weren't pretty good, either.
Latest threads
-
If things weren't nearly dystopian enough, Kristi Noem backs The Homeland Games- Started by Its On A Slab
- Replies: 4
-
Bama fans I have a question about who is your biggest rival- Started by fatphilsbrother
- Replies: 24
-
No. 18 Alabama Drops Series Opener, 7-6, at No. 23 Florida on Thursday- Started by Diamond Tide
- Replies: 0
-
-
-