In reply to: Not one legitimate top 5 teams... posted by supernd
However, we weren’t elite that year. We were 9-4 with ineligible players. The football world didn’t think we’d measured ourselves against a great team and proven ourselves great, it thought we took advantage of some penalty flags and squeaked out a win against a better team. And that is true.
Don’t get me wrong. It is the one time in the last many many years that we played spoiler to someone else’s great season instead of just coming close to doing so and flopping at the last second, which happens a lot (Nebraska 2000, Southern Cal 2005, FSU 214 — note that each of these teams ultimately proved to be a bit overhyped). But I’d like that win a lot more if it weren’t a BC-esque upset of a better teams. I like the Stanford and Oklahoma 2012 wins more.
They would have smoked us in a rematch. We definitely did not get their "A game".
Do you compare them to 2002 Miami of Florida?
For the Greatest Team of All-Time, they sure lost.
Probably better than OSU 2002/Texas 05, and lost on a razor thin margin when everything went the other team's way. Both of those teams were very good teams in their own right
Do you remember following the 2005 season? They were supposedly the greatest team of all time. Bush and White were Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis and Matt Leinart was the reigning Heisman winner headed for a repeat. When Bush was not taken first overall, it was derided as one of the biggest errors in drafting history (it was not a mistake at all and Bush was not even the best RB in his draft class).
In retrospect, they struggled against two inferior opponents during the regular season and while they ran up gaudy numbers against poor opponents, only their blowout of Oregon stands out as an impressive win.
Admittedly Miami 2002 got similar treatment, as did FSU 2000.