Nebraska 62 – Florida 24 (January 2, 1996)
How Many Tackles Can One Man Break?
In the weeks leading up to the 1996 Fiesta Bowl, much of the talk was that Florida’s speedy receivers and backs would run wild through the lumbering, huge, corn-fed Nebraska players. Spurrier’s “Fun ‘n Gun” offense was posting video game scores for much of the ’95 season, beating overmatched opponents by an average of twenty-eight points per game. (They scored more than fifty points four times that season.) The Gators were unstoppable.
And then they ran into a wall of red.
For just one of many pieces of evidence proving that Nebraska’s team literally pounded the Gators on that depressing night in Tempe, I ask you to consider the first play of the game. Florida’s future NFL wide receiver Jacquez Green caught the opening kickoff and was immediately destroyed by Nebraska tacklers, suffering a dislocated hip that would sideline him for almost a year.
Surprisingly the Gators still somehow took a 10-6 lead into the second quarter. It would be the only lead of the game for Florida, who promptly surrendered 29 unanswered points before halftime. The Cornhuskers would score another 27 points in the second half (to Florida’s 14) in a game that was just a completely brutal bloodbath for the Gators. If you thought Florida’s defense looked inept in the 2009 SEC Championship Game, then you would have spent much of January 2nd, 1996 with your jaw on the floor. In the most memorable run of his career, Nebraska’s Tommie Frazier broke at least seven tackles on a 75-yard run which left most Florida fans wondering if anything could stop him.
Nothing could. He ran for 199 yards in the game, at the time the most ever for an NCAA quarterback.
For the record: Nebraska gained 524 rushing yards. Florida had -28 rushing yards. (Yes, that’s a negative.)
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
RE: “Losing Sucks”………………..yeah, but it builds character
I keep thinking that if I don’t think about it or read about it…then maybe it will feel like it did not happen….it didn’t happen…..only thinking about the 22 in a row…..the feeling all season that we were #1 and could take it all again……but like you said, we were raised Red Sox fans…..and while “losing sucks”….to some degree…….we are used to disappointment……………..man………that sucked.
Good list but I would have included the Sugar Bowl against Notre Dame in 1992. We had no answer for “The Bus” at all.
Yikes!!!!! I am sure the Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee fans would love to read this. I would rather forget these as well as the losses we had to Georgia in the 1980′s. GOOOOOO GATORS!
Yeah I remember watching that game in January 1996 playing our first national championship game against Nebraska. Out of the times that we’ve lost, I’m not sure I felt more pain in defeat than I did that night. Yeah we’ve had our butts kicked before but, not as thouroughly as that evening. It hurts to watch your team just get run over. I was in the 8th grade and I wanted to sit and support my boys till the end but my dad said I had to go to bed for school the next morning lol.