GOAT?

Went 7-4 on the week, good enough to get paid. If we win again next week, that will be two in a row. The week after that...well that's called a winning streak. It has happened before.

Michigan won, not by enough, but still a solid pick. This game reminds me how good the handicappers in Vegas really are. After the Wolverines won, I was sure I had the game picked correctly, but nope. it was UM by 3.5. How were they favored? They have shown nothing, Penn State just beat THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY the week before, yet I had to lay points?

The Texas Tech game was the easiest pick of the week as the Red Raiders threw for over 600 yards on the Wildcats. Guess that should've been my lock instead of the Bulls of South Florida, who failed mightily at Pittsburgh.

But the win that hurt the worst was Notre Dame. Sure I won the game with the spread, but it would've been nice to see USC go down. Immediately after the game, the media, in a rare fit of hyperbole, was quick to call the game the greatest ever. Their claims were slightly substantiated by an ESPN.com poll, where "The Game of the Century" from 1971 between Nos. 1 and 2 Nebraska and Oklahoma, was fourth with only 8% of the vote. Whatever, the most recent event is always going to win in an unscientific poll such as that, what I'm more interested in is the claim USC will lay to greatest team of all time should they win out.

If the Trojans achieve the previously unachievable and win their third consecutive national title, it seems inevitable that they will assume the throne in the GOAT sweepstakes. Here is where we need the help of former Huskers proponent, Lee Corso, to step in and say "not so fast, my friend." (Nevermind the fact that Lee and I are not friends and I hated it when he would pick Nebraska year after year, essentially condemning them to lose. Seriously, check his record against Herbstreit this year.)

A few years back, Jeff Sagarin did a historical analysis and named the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers as the GOAT. Nebraska won their second consecutive national title that year by dismantling the Florida Gators 62-24. The only thing that kept it from being their third straight was an absolutely abysmal spot in the 1993 Orange Bowl that shorted the Bugeaters 5 yards and gave the Seminoles the win 18-16 after a missed field goal as time expired. If not for that game, Nebraska would've won 41 straight games between 1992-1996. That's a full season plus some ahead of SC's current streak.

But we're not looking at dynasties, we're looking at teams. The 95 Huskers closest game was a 14 point win over Washington State. They beat three Top 10 teams over the course of the season. (Little known fact, one of those teams was #10 Kansas! Kansas?) They had the number two ranking offense in the country, behind Nevada which barely counts, as well as the top ranked scoring offense and the fourth best scoring defense in the country.

Southern Cal will most likely face one Top 10 team this season (Notre Dame) and has already looked incredibly vulnerable in three out of their past four games. They do possess the most potent offense in the country to date and the second best scoring offense behind Texas Tech, another system skewed leader with questionable competition much like Nevada in 95. But their defense isn't even on the charts in any of the major categories.

The Trojans won their first national title with one loss, but didn't even play the number two team in the country, LSU. Last year, they received major scares from Cal and Stanford, before destroying Oklahoma in the national championship. So the question becomes, is greatness measured by dominance or resilience?

In 1995, Nebraska was dominant. They pushed teams around, ran their outdated system and enforced their will. USC, unquestionably the most talented team in the country, has made the adjustments necessary to win week to week. The Trojans probably have more weapons than that Nebraska team had, but Nebraska runs away with it in style points.

For my money, the key to the GOAT questions lies in team performance. SC has the luxury of being able to fall back on any one of three great players to pick up the slack should the others falter. Nebraska, as we would come to find out in the late 1990's was either possessor or captor of the option offense. But during that 95 season, Nebraska rolled through college football with alarming precision, and even if USC wins their third straight Sears Trophy, I'm making my hay with the Cornhuskers.

Of course now we need to debate whether that 95 team was even better than the 71 or even 83 editions of Nebraska football...