Who had more talent in 1997?
Many of you are familiar with the 1997 season and the "shared championship" controversy. In the years since, especially the recent ones, I've often thought about how much talent Michigan had that year. This is partly because several guys from the roster are still high-profile NFL players.
When 1997 has come up in my conversations with college football fans outside the Midwest, I've noticed that the majority of them assume that Nebraska would have beaten Michigan if (say) the BCS had existed that year. I could speculate as to why that's the case, but that's not my main point here.
We'll obviously never know how that game might have turned out, but I've long believed that Michigan had more talent that year than Nebraska. How could that be measured?
I decided to look at the '97 rosters for both teams and the NFL database (http://www.databasefootball.com/). Here are my findings (specifically, lists of the future pros from each team):
Michigan: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AkEbjH02DNzxdDNsLU…
Nebraska: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AkEbjH02DNzxdFY4ZU…
Michigan wins easily.
Notice:
* Michigan has more players, 33 to 24.
* Michigan has more "NFL" years, 200 to 152.
* Michigan's players appear to be distributed more evenly through the classes. Notice how many more 4th-/5th-year guys they have. So, more mature talent, right?
Comments:
* NFL careers (and length thereof) are obviously not a perfect measure of talent at the college level, but I'll bet the correlation is significantly positive.
* On the other side (so to speak) plenty of college stars, including some Michigan Men over the years, have never played a game in the NFL. That doesn't mean they weren't significant contributors at the NCAA level.
* On the database site, classes were clearly assigned based on years in the program. Tom Brady was a junior to them but a redshirt sophomore to Michigan.
* Data goes to only 2009. You'll see that number next to players who were still active that year.
* The presence of a future pro in a given year might not be important. For example, Michigan gets all of Tom Brady's years, but he made a minimal contribution to the '97 team (on the field, at least). I would have looked at that more closely and filtered the non-contributors, but I didn't have enough information for the task.
* Compare '97 to '08. So far, there are only seven guys from that team (Trent, Jamison, Graham, Mesko, Brown, and probably Schilling and Mouton). Martin and possibly others (Hemingway, Molk, RVB, Woolfolk, Koger, Omameh, Roundtree, and Stonum ... too early to tell for the rest, I think) should join them eventually.
unfortunately stonum will not have an NFL career i feel
They squeaked by on a bogus win in overtime. Coaches gave Osborne a life time achievement award. We know we were better. Get over it.
perfectly stated.
I told anyone who would listen back then, and would still argue today, that two undefeated teams in power conferences should share the national championship, except for Nebraska. In 1994, I believe, Penn State, went undefeated yet didn't share the title with Nebraska. So in my mind, it doesn't really matter even if they were theoretically better. They should never have shared the title because no team in the history of the coaches poll had ever taken the title away from a #1 team that won its final game.
Washington State was underated. Tennessee was overated and Manning was hurt during their game with Nebraska. Also, the media hyped up that goddamn game, which was played after the Rose Bowl, so that it made good press to give Osborne another title.
But I also feel Michigan would have beaten Nebraska straight up as well. We never had a game closer than 5 points the whole season. We didn't trail late in any game. Our defense was dominant. Our offense wasn't scary but they were efficient and filled with future NFL talent. And Nebraska had an overtime miracle where a receiver illegally kicked the ball to himself, so they should have had one loss anyway. Finally, our schedule was much more difficult. We played like 8 ranked teams that year. Nebraska homers and Tennessee Manning lovers can suck it because we were the best team in the nation that year and its not even that close.
We trailed Iowa 24-21 with 3 minutes to go until tuman's go ahead TD.
And Nebraska had an overtime miracle where a receiver illegally kicked the ball to himself, so they should have had one loss anyway.
Minor detail, but that Nebraska kick play is one of those vivid memories that will always seem like I was there. He kicked it up, and another player caught it.
A coach (long reputed to be Phil Fulmer) voted UM low enough to provide NU's margin to claim the top spot in the poll. Had that coach simply voted UM 2nd, UM would have won the coaches' poll.
Nebraska won the Bowl Alliance, they were contractually guaranteed the Coaches Poll.
NOT true. That rule was not implemented until the BCS the following year.
The poster about Fulmer is speculating as well. That was simply a rumor. The coaches poll was secret and did not release its individual voting results.
It was in place for the Alliance as well as the Coalition before it.
No it was not. They couldn't do that when the Big Ten and Pac-10 weren't part of the Coalition and Alliance.
The internet is saying it was, and I haven't found a single website/ statement saying otherwise.
I'd be interested in seeing the website that says it was. Michigan somehow got 30 first place votes in the final 1997 poll.
I have no idea how enforceable it was (if another team was voted #1, would they still give the trophy?), but Wikipedia has it and I haven't found a source to refute it.
There's no link provided for citation of that statement, and it's disputed in the Talk section. I'm going to keep searching the Internet, but I think you're being fooled by some schmuck who knows less than he thinks he does.
EDIT: Found it. Rule came into effect in 1998.
Thanks for the clarification. Obviously it appears you are correct.
This site still has the split mythical part till the BCS-
http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/bcs_explained.html
And the NY Times says Osborne was surprised to discover he won (which he wouldn't be if the winner of the game automatically won)
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/04/sports/football-who-s-no-1-results-ar…
And made a point that it was the last year the winner wouldn't be decided on the field-
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/04/sports/who-s-no-1-flip-a-poll.html?sr…
Trust us for those that lived it, it was a long night of ESPN seeing if they were projecting the polls would flip or not.
I believe only one coach voted Michigan lower than second place. Of course, that's all it took. More interesting, it was the first time in the major polls that a number one team won their bowl game and didn't finish number one in the polls.
If we had played a traditional Pac 10 power, anyone besides Wazzu, our victory would have been good enough to win outright and leave Nebraska in the cold. Tennessee that year crapped the bed every big game they played in. That was Manning's MO in college. Spurrier owned him and Fulmer almost as easily as he did Ray Goof, I mean Goff (gosh, that was classic Spurrier).
We couldn't have won the Coaches Poll that year, the Bowl Alliance wouldn't allow it. It could have been 2004 USC we beat and it would have done nothing.
Because we were #1 in the Coach's poll before the bowl games. They weren't required to vote the winner of any bowl game at that time #1. The Alliance was just to match them up, not to decide the polls. They could have voted us #1 (and should have since they had never changed it with a winning team before).
by this allegation. Payback for Woodson getting the Heisman over Manning I presume?
When Manning records about 70 tackles, 10 sacks, and 3 ints while playing QB, he'll deserve the Heisman. Too bad we couldn't pay them back in 01
and Bowl Game vs Bowl Game is how they have been measured, but if you put them on the same field Michigan wins. Nebraskas 97 team was a rushing powerhouse, and relied very heavily on it, the same way Wisco was last year, running up huge scores all season on the ground, but Michigan was in the middle of a long stretch of the best rush defense in the history of college football. Every year they led the Big Ten and many times the nation in rush defense, or total defense, or scoring defense and would've locked down Nebraska like TCU did to Wisco. The reason pundits say our 98 Rose Bowl was "unconvincing" was because we were contending with Ryan Leaf who, at the time, people said "flip a coin, heads: Ryan Leaf-tails:Payton Manning" We still managed to more or less contain him and win the game. A superstar college qb made it difficult, but a rush heavy offense would've been a treat for our defense.
Plus, talent wise our kids spent moreyears in the NFL and they were better quality years too. Our kids who went pro went to more Pro Bowls, won more Superbowls, and a few MVP trophies on offense and defense than Nebraskas kids.
I'm surprised you still think about it, but you're not alone. There are several Nebraska alumns (one former mascot) in my office and it was brought up a lot when I first started. Obviously they still think about it.
I went to every home game that year, watched every game I didn't attend and no body was beating Michigan that year.
Nebraska was completely one-dimensional on offense, running exclusively. Michigan was great against the run that year, and only had moderate difficulty with two dimensional teams that passed well. Not only would we have won, it would not really have even been close, a 10 point margin or greater for sure.
We were actually significantly better against the pass than the run that season. Great at both, but Wisconsin and Ohio State both ran the ball pretty well on us at the end of the season.
I can't relive this topic. Because it makes me think of Scott Frost opening his big mouth...and I have to punch something.
Everyone needs to stop being so defensive about it. We won our share went undefeated but the facts are that the 97 team was flawed and was not an overwhelming force.
Much of the offensive line which contained great NFL players was very young. Anthony Thomas was a freshmen as well. Our receivers were pretty weak other than Streets. Our play calling and scheme were pretty vanilla as well. In short our offense was subpar.
The defense was spectacular and it would have been a fascinating matchup against Nebraska's Power I Option Attack. Our best player would have been nullified because of their lack of passing. It would have been interesting how Hermann would have deployed Woodson to get him involved as a blitzer. Nebraska's defense was predicated on pressuring the passer so it would have been neat to see how they played a power run team.
The odds are that a Neb/Mic game in 97 would have looked much like OSU/Mich game from 1975 I'll say 10-9 Mich on a late fg..
I remember seeing a few kids on campus wearing shirts that said "hey nebraska, any place, any time"
Also the championship was given to Neb. because Osborne was retiring. As my boss at the time mentioned, they gave it to "good Ol' Tom".
Unfortunately we'll have to listen to this subject get brought up just about M and Nebraska play...
One of those shirts. :)
I did this game on the Playstation and Michigan won...that's all I need to know.
I used to take it out on Nebraska in NCAA Gamebreaker 99. I'm talking 117 to 7 type beat downs, even with Eastern Michigan. That game was the shit.
I feel that we were the better team in 1997. I truly believe that that was one of the three or four best college defenses I have ever seen. I believe that they would have slowed down a very good, but fairly one-dimensional offense. However, I don't think the NFL comparison is really fair to Nebraska. They were very good in the trenches. They also had great college skill players. However, their skill players were very good at running a college only run based offense.They did not get skill players with NFL type skills to run that offense. For instance, QB Scott Frost, the most infamous lobbyist in college football history not named Urban Meyer or Gary Danielson, was very good running that offense but was not going to be an NFL QB. Not the same offense by any means, but in some ways, they were the RichRod run based college offense of their day.
Talent was one thing but consider this in style of play. Nebraska offense was completely 1 dimensional run game with some passing thrown in. Michigan had superior pass defense that was easily better then anything Nebraska could put at them in the passing game. Nebraska had 2 pass plays, 1 Michigan ran all the time themselves to the te trailing bootleg off play action the other was qb option step back pass, either wr or te streaking down the field. To wich the backside corner safety had to watch the release of the wr or te....
This against that michigan defense puts nebraska's only option to run the ball every down....and one thing Nebraska would have found was the fact that this defense was devastating once they had you one dimensional.
Imo Pennst was the most dangerous offense in cfb that yr and this defense rocked them to the core. Nebraska against this defense focused for the mnc, it's over.......
My drunk friend Rob will explain why by moving all of your living room furniture out of the way and demonstrating why the Nebraska offense was unstoppable.
To me, the issue is not which team would have won a hypothetical matchup, but which team actually accomplished more on the field. Both teams went undefeated, but Michigan played a more difficult schedule. Therefore, Michigan accomplished more on the field than Nebraska in 1997. Whether we did it with more or less talent is immaterial.
If that game were played today, I would be worried about Jim Hermann getting completely owned. He was a terrible defensive coordinator who had 12 incredible fluke games. in game #13, he was exposed badly, and he got completely buttfucked on a semi-regular basis for the rest of his career after that. Osborne would have absolutely made Hermann look like a shmuck. Our offense would have had to win it, and I don't think that they could have.
Talent-wise... no question we had more. We also had two pretty bad coordinators (Debord and Hermann) that were exposed as such in the subsequent years.
I always thought Hermann was a lousy DC, but the thing is that he was actually pretty good at finding ways to stop traditional run-based offenses. It was the spread offenses that gave him fits. Nebraska in 1997 ran the option. I am not sure they could have really exploited Hermann's weaknesses.
Hermann sucked big time at stopping option offenses. Jarious Jackson and Donovan McNabb carved us up like crazy. Running QBs have always been a bugaboo for Michigan, but he took it to new levels. We got somewhat fortunate in 1997 that all of our Big Ten opponents besides Wisconsin specialized in vanilla running and dropback, downfield passing. I have always wondered what our defense would have done against Nebraska's power option attack. If there is any offense that could have beaten our defense, that would have been it. I think that our '97 defense would have destroyed a spread offense. The d-line was dominant and the corners and safeties were awesome at covering in space.
Remember mcnabb and jackson both killed the defense throwing overtop, if you remember todd toast howard getting torched a couple times ..... or finding out Andre Weathers wasn't Woodson against syracuse cause they tried to play the same man up style with Weathers as the #1 corner........... And don't forget the real issue in pass defense was this. Woodson left for the nfl, William Peterson who likely would have taken over as the #1 corner transferred and was ruled ineligible........ and then add in either Patmon or another db didn't play that game either....so it took herman out of being aggressive playing man coverage and attacking mcnabb and spying him with hendricks like he wanted to instead dropping the safeties deep to cover for the corners.....
Michigan against nebraska... frost was nowhere near the throwing qb mcnabb was, and was a straight forward runner, not elusive or dominating physically. But I will say the rb's for the huskers were the real deal.
Biggest advantage michigan had was a big rotation of dlineman that yr......One thing that would have hurt michigan though was not having either eric mayes or dadrian taylor since both were out injured for the year.... but that only mildly affected depth on that defense.
It seems to me that Michigan's main problem with running quarterbacks under Hermann was mostly against scramblers (like McNabb, Randle El, and Troy Smith), and less with option attacks. Though, frankly I can't remember Michigan playing too many games agaisnt option teams in the Hermann era, and you have a point--frankly Michigan's defense did get destroyed in the '98 ND game.
Still, the types of losses I most fault Hermann for were games like 2000 Northwestern and 2001 Purdue--teams with inferior talent that destroyed our defense, often running the same plays over and over again, because Hermann couldn't figure out what to do about it.
spread offense were not the rage at the time when Purdue and Northwestern were successful in the early 00s. Northwestern offense were one of the few who does no huddle up tempo spread offense which exploit a lot of defense's weaknesses because most defense are designed to stop against pro style offense or option offense.
I have heard and even said some very nasty things about Hermann's coaching AFTER the 97 season but I have never heard anyone brazen enough to suggest that Hermann sucked DURING the 97 season.
Congratulations, a winner is you!!
"12 incredible fluke games" indeed. O WHAT LUCK. WHAT FLUKISH THINGS DID HAPPEN.
Oddly, Hermann won the award for 'Top Assistant Coach' that year.
DeBord was pretty good in his day also--and let's be totally honest, he may have been infuriating in 2006 and 2007 but he still did pretty good.
But you go on ahead and keep rewriting history.
I didn't say that Hermann sucked during the 1997 season, but thanks for playing.
What I did say is that the 1997 season was an incredible fluke, and that Nebraska's offense probably, would have exposed him for being an incompetent clown. This happened over and over again, starting with the 1998 Notre Dame game, in which a mediocre Notre Dame team (that wasn't even very good at running the option) with a mediocre quarterback shredded our defense (9 returning starters) for 280 rushing yards. The Rose Bowl against Wasu was the last time that we gave up less than 28 points.
HALOL
Maybe you would like to 'clarify' this statement before I go and get all confused again;
"The Rose Bowl against Wasu was the last time that a Jim Hermann coached defense gave up less than 28 points."
"The Rose Bowl against Wasu was the last time that a Jim Hermann coached defense gave up less than 28 points..."
In a bowl game