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

So 2002 is "old timey" now?

Well, Carson Palmer's in his 40s now...

can we at least use the year 2000 as the cutoff? 

I' surprised to see '94 Penn State leading (in a tie).  I thought '71 OU or Other would run away with it.  And there was a reason the '87 Fiesta Bowl was such a big upset...

I thought yous guys respected defense.  Great offense - 2 good WRs, a short-range threat at TE, a truly great RB and a QB to distribute the ball.  But 70th in total defense that year.
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Luckily for them, they didn't play any big-boy defenses in 1994.  The best defense they faced was Illinois.  The Illini weren't really a threat, yet PSU only won by 4.  Maybe that outcome was less of a fluke and more of a legit challenge.  Ohio State had the next-best defense they faced, and their 63 points there was a genuinely elite performance.  The rest of the Big Ten had average-to-crappy defenses.

I thought yous guys respected defense.  Great offense - 2 good WRs, a short-range threat at TE, a truly great RB and a QB to distribute the ball.  But 70th in total defense that year.
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Luckily for them, they didn't play any big-boy defenses in 1994.  The best defense they faced was Illinois.  The Illini weren't really a threat, yet PSU only won by 4.  Maybe that outcome was less of a fluke and more of a legit challenge.  Ohio State had the next-best defense they faced, and their 63 points there was a genuinely elite performance.  The rest of the Big Ten had average-to-crappy defenses.

your other quote regarding 94 PSU...........................


Now, I don't know what, if anything, the coaches had against Penn State, but for that team to not get a share of the NC was odd, based on the precedent. 
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perhaps the coaches voting in the 1994 final poll respected defense????

or since then?

Everyone should look at this - all the team statistics from the NCAA website for 1994.  It's PDFs of that old-school printout paper with the green and white rows, all slanted and sloppy. 
The NCAA is one lazy MFer.

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_records/archive/fbs/1994team.pdf

Dayum! Bama was 53rd in Rushing Offense and 75th in Passing Offense and was 11-1-0. Lol. I believe Stallings' standard instructions to the OC was. "Don't do anything to lose the game. My defense will win it."