TSN's 1995 All-America Team

Sporting News, The, Dec 18, 1995 by B.G. Brooks, Bruce Hooley

PLAYER OF THE YEAR

TOMMIE FRAZIER,

Nebraska

In his final season of dynamic plays, pinpointing Tommie Frazier's most dynamic is hard. However, the choice is obvious for most Colorado players and fans.

The scene: October 28 in Boulder. Frazier has driven No. 1 Nebraska, which leads 21-14, to the Colorado 42. If the Buffs are to make a stand before h me, this is the time.

It is first down, and Frazier is scanning the field for an open receiver. Defensive end Greg Jones collides with Frazier's rib cage. Frazier flinches briefly, twists in Jones' grasp and completes a 35-yard pass - with authority - to Ahman Green.

Colorado, which allegedly represented the most genuine threat to another Cornhuskers romp through the Big Eight is cooked. Neraska pads its lead with a field goal then wins in a walk, 44-21. The Buffaloes load up to stop the run. Frazier unloads on them with the pass. Once again. he did what was asked of him, then added whatever was necessary to win. On that afternoon in Boulder, he passed for a career-high 241 yards on a career-high 14 com-pletions. His coach, Tom Osborne, calls him "a great player who ready holds things together. He's the difference-maker."

It is for that reason that Frazier is The Sporting News Player of the Year in a vote of our nine college football correspondents and columnist Ivan Maisel.

Frazier, 21, accounted for 31 touchdowns his season (17 passing, 14 rushing) in an offense that again led the nation in rushing 399.8 yards a game). But numbers don't define his contributions. Although other running backs rushed for more yards and other quarterbacks passed for more, no one was he complete offensive threat that Frazier was, and no one lifted his team higher.

"Tommie Frazier is a phenomenal player," enter Aaron Graham says. "The thing I like o much about him is the fact that he's got this competitive fire that pumps you up every me you look at him."

Frazier's inspirational and uninterrupted lay helped the Cornhuskers remain unbeaten for the third consecutive regular season, in a fourth consecutive Big Eight championship outright and position themselves for shot at their second consecutive national championship. If Frazier dominates the Fiesta Bowl to his capabilities, crown the Cornhuskers again.

COACH OF THE YEAR

GARY BARNETT,

Northwestern

They don't make a trophy big enough for the job Gary Barnett did this season at Northwestern.

Wait a minute.

How `bout that one in New York Harbor?

Barnett took his tired, poor, huddled mass of football humanity and put it atop the college football world in a performance so off-the-chart astounding that The Sporting News Coach of the Year award just doesn't seem grand enough (though our nine correspondents and college football columnist Ivan Maisel added a little extra punch by making him a unanimous selection).

The job Barnett did, taking Northwestern to a 10-1 overall record, 8-0 mark in the Big Ten and No. 3 national ranking, is in a whole other realm than previous coach-of-the-year performances.

Somebody gets that award every year, but few, if any coaches, have orchestrated the turnaround Barnett has managed in four short years in Evanston.

Before his arrival, Northwestern not only had a struggling program, but it had a laughingstock of a program, too; one so bad it hadn't enjoyed a winning season since 1971, hadn't won four consecutive games since 1962 and hadn't been to a bowl since the 1948 season.

"What we've done isn't a credit to me," says Barnett, 49, "it's a credit to the players we have who believed what we told them was possible here."

The Wildcats held firm this season when a collapse cost them a game they led, 28-7, with 11 minutes remaining against Miami, 0.

They could have folded in the aftermath of that crushing loss, but rebounded to win nine consecutive games.

They could have folded when All-Big Ten kicker Sam Valenzisi went down with tom knee ligaments in October or when All-America linebacker Pat Fitzgerald broke his leg in early November, but instead they inserted capable replacements and kept rolling.

Only teams with depth, drive and determination handle such setbacks, which Northwestern did thanks to its head coach.

He learned firsthand the secrets of a program's oration on Bill McCartney's staff at Colorado, where the Buffaloes went from 1-10 to national champions in six years.

When McCartney said we'd beat Nebraska, nobody believed him,' Barnett says. "When I came here and said we'd take the purple to Pasadena, no one believed me."

Believe it.