First off, I grew up in Knoxville. I always thought that you and Beano were the most objective UT fans that called in to shows.

I'm wondering specifically why you think Oregon deserves to be in the Title game over Nebraska. It is my opinion that this is a slam dunk. They both lost one game. Nebraska lost on the road to Colorado. They also beat Oklahoma.

Oregon lost at home to the 2nd best team in their conference (Stanford). They didn't even play the third best team (Washington).

Bottome line, a road loss is better then a home loss, and beating Oklahome is far more impressive than anything Oregon did.

Plus, do you really think Oregon would give Miami a better game than Nebraska?

hope I get to meet you sometime when you get back to East Tennessee.

Man, you given me a tough question and I'll try my best to give you a decent enough answer but I'm gonna have to throw some questions back to you to solidify my argument:

I suppose my biggest gripe with Nebraska going to the Rose Bowl is simply not the fact that they lost, but it's how they lost. I don't think there's any arguing Colorado not only beat Nebraska but they absolutely cleaned the Huskers clock--agreed? Keep that in mind as I proceed with my argument below.

Now, I'm going to try and bring this debate a little closer to home by putting Tennessee in Nebraska's shoes...

Let's turn the clock back to 1995. In a game in September of that season Tennessee took virtually the same kind of beating on the road from Florida that NU received from Colorado. In fact, though the end result of the TN/FL game was the same as NU/CU, one could argue TN gave Fla more of a fight than NU did CU because TN was at least in the game for a half.

Tennessee went on to win the remainder of it's games and was pretty impressive while doing so. I can't remember, but for the sake of argument let's suppose there was only one undefeated team in college football in that '95 season. Let's also say there were 3 other teams with one defeat and each of those were conference champions and their defeats were not nearly as embarrassing as Tennessee's. Gray, do you think TN deserved to be REMOTELY CLOSE to playing in the title game after the thrashing Florida gave them while remembering the game was in September and TN had time to vindicate itself? Do you think the '95 Tennessee team deserved to play for the Natl Title before those other conference champions though the Vols didn't even win their own division?

I think I know what your answers to the questions above would be--and that is exactly my argument for Nebraska not going to Pasadena this year.

As for Oregon, I just think they are more deserving than any of the other one loss teams. They play in a very tough conference and are more deserving than Illinois, Maryland, and NEBRASKA.

I think we would have to more closely investigate UT's 1995 schedule before we determine anything.

Your point seems to be: Is the Florida loss in '95 any worse than Nebraska's loss to Colorado this year? My answer is no. Should UT have been the #2 BCS team in 1995-1996? Let's compare some schedules, and figure it out. Could be a real thread.

TN 27 East Carolina 7 (fringe top 25 team)
TN 30 Georgia 27
TN 37 Florida 62
TN 49 Arkansas 31 (played in SEC title game)
TN 41 Alabama 14
TN 52 S. Carolina 20
TN 31 Okla St. 0
TN 42 South Miss 0
TN 52 Miss. St. 14
TN 34 Kentucky 31
TN 12 Vandy 7

Gray, granted, Tennessee didn't defeat a team in '95 close to the quality of NU's win over OU (except for Ohio St in the bowl game), but I'd say the overall schedule is a bit better than Nebraska's. Besides the OU win & the Colorado loss, who else did NU play that was better than decent? MAYBE K-St (6-5)? Remember, Nebraska didn't play Texas & I don't think they played A&M either.

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Hey, Gray. I've been reading your posts with interest. is it possible to e-mail me at the above address? I'll explain when/if you do. Thanks.

It's hard to remember when UT used to score 30-50 points a game regularly, until you read the scores from Brocky's 1995 UT schedule.

If I may intervene for just a moment. The '95 Vols were not deserving of a title shot for the same reason that this years Nebraska team isn't. They did not win their conference. Oregon did. Could Nebraska beat Oregon? Yes. Is Nebraska better than Oregon? Yes. Will Nebraska beat Miami? My guess is Yes. Do they deserve it? No, because they not only didn't win a 12 team conference, they also failed to win a 6 team division.
If it were like the NFL where a team didn't have to win a division to win The Super Bowl it would be different. At least in that scenario, a team has to go on the road for three weeks and beat better teams, thus earning the right to play for all the marbles, unlike Nebraska. I have to agree with brocky on this one. Not that I always agree with him though, (i.e., the absurd statement he made a few weeks ago about Todd Helton). Anyway, my personal opinion is we see a playoff within the next ten years. someone needs to start a thread where we all list our playoff ideas.