Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Yeah, I brought that up earlier in the thread.  Best Michigan team of my lifetime, better than the '97 team, particularly considering how good the Big Ten was in '99.

Wow, I think that 97 team had the best college defense I ever laid eyes on too.  
And you're right, is it fair to say the 1999 Big Ten is the best overall season the league has ever had?

i think a little of this is revisionist history. i have only vague memory of mich that year aside from the orange bowl (in which he was brilliant, that bastard), but i don't remember brady being considered all that great, and his draft and college career stats back up that thought. am i misremembering?
having said that, goat or not, platooning qb's isn't a good plan in any circumstance, imo.

Sure I'll give you the hindsight's 20/20 for sure, but recall that it just seemed like that season M was doing magical things with Brady under center (the PSU comeback is first to mind for obvious reasons) and that it seemed like they had Henson playing b/c they were afraid of him transferring or giving up football altogether.
And I agree, I've never been a fan of platooning QB's.  

Need some help with Indiana - you guys remember any of these years?


8-4 back in 1979.....any notes???

Lee Corso's 79 team won the Holiday Bowl over BYU
even though BYU had 31 first downs to 21 for the Hoosiers and BYU had 520 total yards to 354 for Indiana

I was 9 or 10 when Vaughn Dunbar was at IU and thought he was awesome because he was one of the first to wear a dark visor.  

I guess I'll go with '88 for IU.  On to Purdue.....

If I don't want to go back to the late 60s, Purdue's best team seasons are:
1978 (9-2-1)...meh
1979 (10-2)....good defense
1997 (9-3)....bad defense
1998 (9-4)....Brees w/ a lot of INT
2000 (8-4)....Brees w/ a lot of rushing yds
2003 (9-4)....Kyle Orton w/ a good defense

Any shares?

1960 Iowa.

Minnesota was AP #1, but lost the Rose Bowl. Iowa's only loss was to Minnesota 27-10 at Memorial Stadium.

Iowa finished AP #2 with a win over Notre Dame in its final game. Iowa had Wilburn Hollis, one of the first black QBs in NCAA football (other than at historically black colleges). Hollis could run and pass.

The stats from 1960 will not compare. Passing was not yet what it became later in the 1960s. The NCAA had a rule for single platoon football through 1963.

I was looking up Colorado's good early-90s teams and the 2001 squad that curb-stomped Nebraska in the XII CG, which took me to 2001 Oregon.  I had filed them under "the Joey Harrington team", but those Ducks had 2 different 1,000-yard rushers.  Their defense also gave up almost 300 yds per game through the air.  Hmph.


Another, separate, observation I've had in doing all this research:  an incredible percentage of very good teams (10-2 or better) have had dreadful field goal kickers.  It seems like as many have FG% success rates in the 50% range as have better than that, which is astounding to me.  And some of the punt return averages are abysmal as well - even from some notable 'name' athletes.