Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium: The Eighth Decade, 1993-2002

A spectacular five-year stretch made for a tough act to follow

Paul Chapman photo-USA TODAY Sports

Eleventh in a series marking the 100th season of Nebraska football in Memorial Stadium. Pictured above: I-back Ahman Green rushed for 1,877 yards in 1997, averaging 6.8 yards per carry.

Unprecedented success, and then unexpected change. That sums up Nebraska football during this 10-year span.

It began with an embarrassment of riches, and Husker fans can recite the details by heart: 60 wins in five years against just three losses, three national championships, and a 1995 team that ranks among the best in college football history (off-the-field warts and all).

Few saw it coming when coach Tom Osborne called it a career at the end of 1997 and handed Frank Solich the reins. Solich delivered far more ups than downs, but a 7-7 season in 2002 turned up the heat on the former Husker player and assistant. At the end of the same year, Solich got a new boss in Steve Pederson when Athletic Director Bill Byrne left after 11 years on the job. Change was about to become the routine.

Scroll past the facts box for a sampling of Memorial Stadium games from this 10-year stretch.

Just the facts: 1993-2002

• Home record: 64-3 (.955) • Overall record: 109-19-0 (.852) • Conference titles: 5 • All-Americans: Trev Alberts, Ed Stewart, Zach Wiegert, Brenden Stai, Aaron Graham, Tommie Frazier, Jared Tomich (2), Aaron Taylor (2), Grant Wistrom (2), Jason Peter, Mike Brown, Ralph Brown, Carlos Polk, Dominic Raiola, Russ Hochstein, Keyuo Craver, Eric Crouch, Toniu Fonoti, DeJuan Groce. • Major trophies: Alberts, Wiegert, Frazier, Taylor, Wistrom, Raiola, Crouch (3). (All except Raiola are also in the College Football Hall of Fame.) • Head coaches: Tom Osborne, 1973-97. Frank Solich 1998-2003.

Surviving an air assault

Tyrone Williams ends a Kansas State threat late in the second quarter by intercepting a halfback pass intended for quarterback Chad May at the NU 4-yard line / Associated Press via Newspapers.com

1993: Nebraska 45, Kansas State 28. The Blackshirts were nursing bruised egos after this one, but Nebraska’s drive to the national championship game remained on track after six games. A Homecoming crowd watched uneasily as KSU’s Chad May burned the Huskers for a Big Eight record 489 passing yards.

Turnovers were what proved to be KSU’s undoing: 17 points off two interceptions and a fumble recovery essentially provided Nebraska its margin of victory. Even so, it was a three-point game midway into the fourth quarter, but the Huskers sealed the victory with a 76-yard touchdown drive followed by a goal-line stand inside the NU 5-yard line.

Trev Alberts’ quarterback sack in the second half gave him a school-record 24½ for his career, but the senior outside linebacker was in no mood to celebrate: “I don’t feel good about my own effort today. Neither do the rest of the guys, if they’re honest about it. ... We’ve got some serious inconsistency problems.” The Blackshirts had things turned around 2½ months later when they allowed heavily favored Florida State just one touchdown in a narrow Orange Bowl loss. | HuskerMax game page

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The Buffs stop here

1994: Nebraska 24, Colorado 7. The smart money seemed to be on the second-ranked Buffaloes heading into this late-October showdown in Lincoln against the No. 3 Cornhuskers. With quarterback Tommie Frazier sidelined by blood clots, Brook Berringer was making just his fourth start for the Huskers, and Berringer himself was still recovering from a deflated lung. Colorado, meanwhile, was on a roll behind veteran dual-threat QB Kordell Stewart, Heisman-caliber tailback Rashaan Salaam and All-America receiver Michael Westbrook.

It was no contest. Berringer repeatedly found tight ends open at key moments as the Huskers built a 24-0 lead in the game’s first 35 minutes. Even more impressive was the Nebraska defense, which harassed and befuddled Stewart all day. The Buffs never converted a third or fourth down, and their lone score came on a 36-yard drive set up by the game’s only turnover.

Memorial Stadium’s 200th consecutive sellout crowd witnessed the signature win, which vaulted Nebraska into the No. 1 spot in the AP poll and put the Huskers on track for their first national championship since 1971. | HuskerMax game page

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Sun sets on Big Eight

Nebraska 37, Oklahoma 0. In the final Big Eight Conference football game, Jamel Williams and Tony Veland each returned a turnover for a touchdown as the Huskers registered their first shutout of the Sooners since 1942.

It was Nebraska’s biggest margin of victory in the series since 1928, but there was no denying that the Huskers’ offense struggled: The first offensive touchdown didn’t come until the fourth quarter. Quarterback Tommie Frazier said afterward that the Sooners “did a lot of shifting up front,” something he said the Huskers had not prepared for.

Frazier’s so-so performance in the nationally televised game essentially ended his Heisman Trophy chances, but nothing was going to keep Nebraska from seizing its second consecutive national championship 5½ weeks later in the Fiesta Bowl, a game that cemented Frazier’s Hall of Fame credentials. | HuskerMax game page

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Defense on the offensive

Nebraska 55, Michigan State 14. Despite the lopsided score, the 1996 season opener provided hints that Nebraska’s offense wouldn’t quite be the juggernaut it was the previous season.

A punt return and a pair of interception returns accounted for three of the Huskers’ seven touchdowns. Two other Nebraska TDs came on short drives set up by an interception and a blocked punt.

Coach Nick Saban’s Spartans couldn’t keep the score respectable, but they did hold the Huskers to under 300 yards of total offense. “Defensively, we played a lot better than last year,” Saban said, referring to a 50-10 MSU loss in East Lansing. “Nebraska didn’t have the sustained drives they had last year, nor did they have the long runs and all the yards rushing and that type of thing.”

Saban heaped praise on the Blackshirts, calling their performance “probably as good as I’ve ever seen.”

In his debut at quarterback for Nebraska, Stanford transfer Scott Frost passed for 74 yards and ran for 58. | HuskerMax game page

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Tom’s 250th

Nebraska 69, Oklahoma 7. The home portion of the Huskers’ national championship season provided fans little in the way of suspense. Every win but one was by at least 29 points, and the Sooners suffered more than double that deficit in this Nov. 1 mismatch. It was head coach Tom Osborne’s 250th career win and the Huskers’ seventh victory in a row against their longtime rivals.

In the 34-0 first half, Nebraska got touchdown runs from fullback Joel Makovicka, I-back Correll Buckhalter and quarterback Scott Frost, plus a 40-yard TD pass from Frost to Bobby Newcombe. In the third quarter, touchdown runs of 37 and 32 yards by Makovicka helped push the lead to 55-0. By the time it was over, the Sooners had suffered their most lopsided loss ever.

On defense, Grant Wistrom was a one-man wrecking crew. The senior rush end had 10 tackles, including two sacks and three forced fumbles, one of which he recovered himself. | HuskerMax game page

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Another nail-biter vs. Mizzou

Nebraska 20, Missouri 13. A year after the “flea-kicker” classic in Columbia, the roles were reversed in Lincoln as the final seconds ticked down. This time it was Missouri trying to force overtime with a pass into the end zone, but a Tiger receiver’s drop and then a 10-yard quarterback sack ensured that history wouldn’t repeat.

Outyarded nearly 2-to-1, the Tigers stayed in the game via opportunism. Their first touchdown came on a 41-yard fumble return, and their second one capped a drive of just 25 yards following a long return of a blocked field goal attempt. Their end-of-game opportunity came courtesy of a bad center-quarterback exchange as the Huskers tried to run out the clock.

Nebraska scored the game’s final 17 points after falling behind early, but nothing came easily. With starter Bobby Newcome slowed by an ailing knee and backup Eric Crouch nursing a hip injury, third-string quarterback Monte Christo took most of the snaps. The senior walk-on rushed for 67 yards on 20 carries and scored Nebraska’s two second-half touchdowns on short runs, but he completed just one pass for seven yards.

Linebacker Eric Johnson’s sack of quarterback Corby Jones on the final play capped a stellar performance by the Nebraska defense. Missouri entered the game averaging 266 rushing yards and 380 total-offense yards, but the Tigers managed just 77 on the ground and 166 overall. In 1997 against the Huskers, Jones passed for 233 yards and ran for 60, but this time those numbers were a meager 89 and zero. | HuskerMax game page

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Crouch claims QB job

Nebraska 45, Cal 0. Eric Crouch did it all and became QB1. DeAngelo Evans did very little and became an ex-Husker.

There would be higher-stakes games in Lincoln later in the season — back-to-back November wins over Texas A&M and Kansas State spring immediately to mind. But this September blowout helped settle personnel issues at two key positions for 1999 and beyond.

Crouch, passed over for Bobby Newcombe at quarterback during fall camp, was seeing action as a receiver in addition to alternating at QB. The sophomore from Omaha had a breakout game, running for two touchdowns, throwing a 70-yard touchdown pass and catching a short toss that he turned into a 60-touchdown reception. The two long-range scores came less than two minutes apart late in the second quarter.

With Cal committed to stopping the Huskers’ ground game, Nebraska’s I-backs found little running room. Evans, the starter, was unhappy with how he was being used after finishing with five yards on six carries. Three days later, coach Frank Solich announced that the junior from Wichita had quit the team, and also that Crouch was the new starting QB. | HuskerMax game page

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Winning at the wire

Nebraska 34, Colorado 32. A Colorado touchdown and two-point conversion with 47 seconds left seemed to seal the Huskers’ fate in this back-and-forth Black Friday showdown. But the Buffaloes’ squib kick on the ensuing kickoff didn’t turn out as planned, giving Nebraska a short field and a measure of hope. Trailing 32-31, the Huskers drove from their own 38 to the CU 12, and Josh Brown nailed a 29-yard field goal for the win as time expired.

The game saw four lead changes in the fourth quarter, two of them in the final minute. On the winning drive, quarterback Eric Crouch completed four of five passes for 45 yards. Two of the completions were to Bobby Newcombe, including a 17-yarder with five seconds left to give Brown a higher-percentage kick. The win was Nebraska’s ninth in a row in the series. | HuskerMax game page

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Bold play, big win

Nebraska 20, Oklahoma 10. The play was called Black 41 Flash Reverse. Executed to perfection, the dash of trickery sealed the win against the defending national champion Sooners and provided quarterback Eric Crouch an iconic moment in his Heisman Trophy season.

The nation’s eyes were on this contest pitting the top two teams in the season's first BCS standings, and for most of the afternoon the defenses ruled in bruising fashion. After a 10-10 first half, Nebraska took a three-point lead early in the third quarter on a short field goal that was set up by Erwin Swiney’s interception and Thunder Collins’ 39-yard run on a jet sweep.

The Huskers’ 13-10 advantage was anything but safe — especially when Nebraska proceeded to go more than 17 minutes of playing time without a first down. With just under nine minutes left in the game, an Oklahoma punt pinned the Huskers at their own 4. Hoping to force a fourth consecutive three-and-out, the Sooners were smelling blood.

A 19-yard run by Crouch got Nebraska out of immediate danger. Then came a third-down facemask penalty that extended the Huskers’ possession. On first down at the NU 37, coach Frank Solich decided it was time to dial up something special to put this game out of the Sooners’ reach.

Crouch took the snap and handed off to Collins, who appeared to be running another jet sweep from left to right. But this time, Collins pitched the ball to true freshman receiver Mike Stuntz coming the opposite way. Stuntz cocked his left arm, looked downfield and lofted a spiral that hit Crouch in stride at the OU 40. With the Memorial Stadium crowd roaring in delight, Crouch sprinted down the left sideline and into the end zone untouched.

Nebraska's Blackshirt defense made sure there would be no “Sooner Magic” in the six minutes that remained. OU’s Nate Hybl completed just one of six passes the rest of the way while suffering a pair of 12-yard sacks at the hands of the Huskers’ Jamie Burrow and Jon Clanton. | HuskerMax game page

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Hexed by Texas

Texas 27, Nebraska 24. Quarterback Jammal Lord rushed for 234 yards but also threw an interception in the final seconds that ended the Huskers’ hopes for an upset of seventh-ranked Texas.

The Longhorns appeared have the game sewn up when a touchdown gave them a 10-point lead with 3½ minutes left. Nebraska, however, answered with a quick touchdown drive, a defensive stop, and a 44-yard DeJuan Groce punt return to the Texas 16 with just over half a minute remaining. A 33-yard field goal could have sent the game into overtime, but Nebraska went for the win on third and 10. Lord hurled a pass toward Mark LeFlore down the right sideline. At the 1-yard line, Texas cornerback Nathan Vasher beat LeFlore to the underthrown ball on a flying leap for an interception with 10 seconds left.

“Certainly, if I had it to do all over again, I would kick it,” said Nebraska coach Frank Solich, calling it “a very soul-searching decision.”

The loss ended Nebraska’s nation-leading 26-game home winning streak. The Huskers fell to 6-4 in what would turn out to be their first season at .500 or below since 1961. | HuskerMax game page

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