How Good Was the 1997 Offense?
Yesterday I stated in another thread that the 97 defense carried a horrid offense to the NC. I was taken to task by a couple of posters that the 97 offense was anywhere from underrated to good to could score when they wanted Lloyd just held the reigns. Not sure why but this kind of surprised me that more than a few people stuck up for that offense. I asked a few people the rest of the day that question and most agrred with me that it was anywhere from mediocre to blah.
As we have seen the last few years people have a big difference on what they think is a successful offense so I wanted to get a board wide feel on where we slot this offense from 97. Put your vote in from 1 to 10. 10 being 95 Nebraska's run game mixed with Spurriers 97 fun gun passing game and 1 being 08 Michigan. I know a lot of guys have stats already worked up so please use some stats to back up your claims if you can.
The guys in the other thread made me reconsider my own opinion and looking at the stats and production I don't think they were good but maybe they weren't as bad as I remember. I'll give them a 4. My quick stat check looked at the last 11 years of Lloyd's tenure.
Pts per game they were 10th of a 11 years.
Pass yds per game they were 10th of 11 years
Yds per carry they were 6th of 11 years
That would seem to support my argument depending on how you feel about Michigan' offense during this period, but as we've seen with some of the advanced stats that have come out there are a lot of factors that go into those pretty generic stats so I can be swayed if you have a good point or stat.
Have at it.
February 7th, 2012 at 12:50 PM ^
The offense was competent, the defense was excellent, and one of the most spectacular seasons a defensive player has ever had elevated the whole thing to an undefeated season and a MNC. And we dodged a couple of early bullets.
February 7th, 2012 at 1:25 PM ^
Meh. They were a liability in a few games (ND, MSU, OSU) and they had some very forgettable games against teams like Iowa (good yardage but 3 turnovers), Minnesota, and Nortwestern. They had good games against Indiana, Colorado, and Wisky and excellent games against Baylor and Penn State. They were mediocre as hell in the Rose Bowl too until the fourth quarter.
It's funny how having a superb defense changes your perspective on the offense. When you don't need to score more than 20 points to win a game, you can punt 7 times and not feel bad about the offense. But when you are the 2010 Michigan team and you have to drive 88 yards for a touchdown every single time that you have the ball, every failure is magnified.
February 7th, 2012 at 1:33 PM ^
I think horrid is a little too harsh of a word.
If you want an example of a dominant defense carrying a horrid offense to a national title, I think 2002 Ohio State is a better example. In their toughest games, they beat Michigan 14-9, Illinois 23-16 in overtime, Purdue 10-6, Penn State 13-7, Wisconsin 19-14, Northwestern 24-16 and Cincinnati 23-19.
Our 97 offense was a little better. The Notre Dame game, we couldn't go 3 plays without fumbling. The MSU game was due to insanely conservative playcalling. For instance, after Woodson's Superman interception, Carr called 3 straight plays up the middle for 6 yards and then we missed a field goal. I can only think of a handful of times where Griese threw the ball at all. The Ohio State game was very much like Alabama/LSU's regular season game this year. Dominating defenses minus the points scored because of turnovers. I do remember being surprised that Washington State's defense held us to 21 points in the Rose Bowl, however.
February 7th, 2012 at 3:12 PM ^
Repeated use of words like "horrid" and "sucked" make a point that was just untrue. The offense in '97 wasn't either. The offense in '08? THAT was horrid. Was it maybe an average offense, and not a truly great, or even very good one? Quite possibly. But you can't frame the argument as stating that something was that bad, and when people say it wasn't, have them try and prove it was one of the all time greats. No one claimed that. It was a good, conservative offense that played to the strengths of the team, and that offense.
The Michigan State game was the perfect example. Not too long into the game, you knew MSU had exactly 0 chance of scoring without trickeration (they scored on a fake FG), and we weren't falling for that twice. They could have played 40 more quarters, and they weren't scoring. A lot of the games were like that. They had some not so great games, like ND, but they also had ones like Wisconsin where when they needed to, they scored. I wouldn't confuse it with '99 or '00 Michigan, but it wasn't a disaster.
February 7th, 2012 at 4:32 PM ^
"It was a good, conservative offense that played to the strengths of the team, and that offense."
Exactly. That is the bottom line. And even with that mindset, the offense could still pleasently surprise you at times. Judgment Day in Happy Valley goes without saying. And Griese throwing those touchdown bombs in the Rose Bowl, I remember turning to my dad and saying, "I didn't know our offense could do that."
February 7th, 2012 at 2:15 PM ^
I remember that offense well. Granted, Griese threw bombs to Tai Streets against Wash St -- but otherwise it was pretty much a field position, grind it out Offense. Offense line was solid, the skill players descent (ie Howard).
What everybody remembers about 97 was that you couldn't wait for that Defense to take the field, to f*ck the other team up real nice, and to score defensive touchdowns.
February 7th, 2012 at 2:28 PM ^
the offense had the talent to be unstoppable, but of course what coach would want to actually win games easily. not our infamous LC. and so most games were closer than they had to be. i guess that's what happens when you hire your buddy to be OC instead of actually paying for a good one.
February 7th, 2012 at 2:42 PM ^
They always seemed to convert a 3rd down when needed. Great offensive line, and reliable play-makers
February 7th, 2012 at 2:51 PM ^
The National Championship year was my senior year, so I have some decent perspective on how the offense was perceived at the time.
Obviously, we all thought that we had the best defense in the country (and we did, by far). We also had some great special teams that year, and not just Woodson.
As to the offense, I would say that they were a 6 of 10, putting them at just above average for a BCL-level (yes, pre-BCS, but you know what I mean) team. That offense was still better than 75% of the teams playing in D1 in 1997. They were just not flashy. More often than not, they picked up big 3rd downs, and they didn't really stall out for more than 1 quarter of any game. At the time, I never really remember being frustrated by them, and I was fairly confident in their abilities to score when needed.
So, above average to good, but not great.
February 7th, 2012 at 3:03 PM ^
This was an offense that could move the ball just enough to pin teams back where they had little hope of scoring on our dominant defense.
This was an offense that could score just enough so other teams couldn't keep up against our dominant defense.
This was an offense that didn't make mistakes, but could capitalize on the mistakes of our opponents.
They were good enough, but make no mistake: we won the national championship because of our defense, first and foremost.
February 7th, 2012 at 3:03 PM ^
No doubt that the D carried this team but Griese threw 6 picks all season to 18 TDs. His decision making ability was so good he got drafted in the third round.
C. Howard, C. Williams, A-Train and C. Floyd also game ample options to run the ball and kept our running game fresh behind a stellar offensive line.
A heathly dose of C. Woodson on offense never hurt either...
February 7th, 2012 at 3:59 PM ^
That year's offense was perfect for the style Carr wanted to run - it was all about keeping the game short by running the ball (Anthony Thomas was a freshman) behind a dominant line (Hutchinson, Jansen, and Backus) and short passing (Jerame Tuman was a huge safety net for Griese) and letting the defense keep teams off the field (that rushing defense was amazing, and Woodson shut down half the field). Their big weakness was at receiver, where Streets and Knight were fine but nothing special.
So no, the offense wasn't great, but the numbers did it a bit of disservice. It didn't need to score much to stay in games, and Carr was definitely not going to air it out if he didn't need to.
February 7th, 2012 at 4:16 PM ^
The problem with comparing the '97 offense with Carr's other offenses is that it didn't need to score as many points as those teams did. All of his other offenses ultimately did not score enough to win every game. The '97 offense did, and usually it scored enough to win comfortably. If we had found ourselves in a bunch of shootout games, we would have put up more numbers, but there was usually not much need.
Take the Minnesota game from that year. We beat a bad (3-9) Gopher team 24-3. Could we have scored more? Probably, but in the fourth quarter there was no urgency to do so. We could sit on the ball and bleed the clock. A lot of games that year were like that. When you outscore your opposition by 17 points per game, you're getting it done on both sides of the ball.
February 7th, 2012 at 5:23 PM ^
Who cares how good the offense was? No one beats us with that defense.
February 7th, 2012 at 5:45 PM ^
The 97 offense was STACKED with talent. Carr and his staff did not allow the team to show its true ability. A ton of players from that 97 O, ended up with long careers in the NFL. You dont do that without talent. Here are some players off the top of my head, who went on to make NFL rosters, some with long and productive careers.
QB - Griese, Brady, Dreisbach
RB/FB - Thomas, Floyd, Howard
WR - Streets, Woodson when he played there at times, Knight
TE - Tuman, Campbell. Shea (H back)
OL - Hutchinson, Jansen, Backus, Brandt
That is a pretty talented starting group with some solid backups. They were hampered by scheme, but Carr was in to game management with that great defense that they had.
February 7th, 2012 at 6:59 PM ^
February 7th, 2012 at 7:16 PM ^
Tai Streets was a playmaker, but he played with broken/dislocated fingers during the regular season that limited him. In the Rose Bowl he was healthy and hauled in the two bombs.