Beginning this week, Hail Varsity Historicals will go game-by-game through Tom Osborne’s 1996 season, preceding his third national championship with Nebraska football.
After Nebraska opened the 1996 season with a 55-14 victory against Nick Saban’s second Michigan State team before 75,590 in light rain at Memorial Stadium, Husker rush end Grant Wistrom told reporters, summing up the Blackshirts’ performance: “We like to be a big-play defense.”
Consider the details that supported his comment:
Rover Mike Minter’s interception set up the game’s first touchdown at the Spartan 22-yard line. Two plays later quarterback Scott Frost ran 11 yards for the score.
Back-up cornerback Mike Fullman scored the second touchdown on a 62-yard punt return, and Minter scored the third on an 84-yard interception return.
Back-up free safety Eric Warfield blocked a punt, which a Michigan State player picked up but fumbled when he took a hit from back-up linebacker Julius Jackson. Back-up linebacker Brian Shaw scooped up the fumble and carried 7 yards to the Spartan 16-yard line to set up the fourth touchdown.
And Wistrom scored Nebraska’s next-to-last touchdown on a 9-yard interception return.
The Huskers also had seven sacks, led by back-up rush end Mike Rucker with 2.5. Linebackers Jamel Williams and Jon Hesse were the leading tacklers, with 13 and nine.
Nebraska’s other touchdowns came on Ahman Green’s 1-yard run, after the Shaw fumble recovery, a 35-yard Frost pass to Brendan Holbein and Matt Turman’s 30-yard pass to Kenny Cheatham.
Kris Brown kicked field goals of 35 and 24 yards and all but one of the extra points — reserve kicker Ted Retzlaff kicked that — for the remaining points.
The Huskers managed 299 yards of offense, including 184 rushing, led by Green, who finished with 71 and the touchdown on 15 carries. Frost, playing in his first game after transferring from Stanford and sitting out a season as required then, rushed for 58 yards and the touchdown and completed 5-of-18 passes for 74 yards and the Holbein touchdown.
Except for the points, the offensive numbers weren’t what Nebraska fans had come to expect following back-to-back national championships. Part of the reason was Michigan State’s defense. “Don’t just say our offense isn’t good,” said Tom Osborne. “They’ve got a good defense.”
He wasn’t “totally pleased with the offense today,” Osborne said. “But I thought we did OK. We didn’t play bad offensively. We hope to get better, as I said before the season started.”
Part of the issue was the quick scores, which sent Nebraska’s defense back on the field. Michigan State ran 76 plays to the Huskers’ 60, and the Spartans had a 34:28-to-25:32 advantage in time of possession. Michigan State finished with 246 total yards, averaging 2.9 per play.
And again, “I thought the strongest part of their team was defense,” said Osborne.
The victory was Nebraska’s 26th in a row, its 37th consecutive regular-season win. Given that and, more importantly, the back-to-back national titles, the Huskers were preseason No. 1.
Six Huskers from the 1995 team were selected in the NFL Draft: running back Lawrence Phillips, cornerback Tyrone Williams, center Aaron Graham, defensive tackle Christian Peter, linebacker Doug Colman and free safety Tony Veland. Eight from this team would be drafted.
There were positions to fill in 1996, notably at cornerback on defense, where true freshman Ralph Brown started, beginning a school-record 52 consecutive career starts. True freshman Mike Brown and redshirt freshman Jerome Peterson also saw action at cornerback. Mike Brown would be a three-year starter at safety and both he and Ralph would earn All-America honors in 1999.
Offensively, the biggest issue was Frost’s replacing Frazier, and his back-up Brook Berringer. “It will take time to get the offense together, but it will be good,” Osborne said.
The next game at Arizona State would underscore Osborne’s words.
