1993-97 On The Plains: Nebraska Football & The Kansas City Chiefs
For most years in our historical tour of the most successful fan markets, we’ve confined ourselves to a single season. There are some instances that are different though and require a stretching of the window. One of them came in the early 1980s with the runs of the Washington D.C. combo of Joe Gibbs’ Washington Redskins and Big John Thompson’s Georgetown Hoyas. Another one comes in the mid-1990s, and we take our historical tour into the Farmbelt.
GREAT 1980s SPORTS MOMENTS
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Let’s go to the great state of Nebraska where one’s college football loyalties—if not their entire live—revolves around the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team. The most logical option for NFL loyalty would be the Kansas City Chiefs. These two teams combined to make the mid-1990s a fantastic run.
Nebraska won national championships in 1994, 1995 and 1997, and came within a missed field goal of winning it in 1993. The Kansas City Chiefs couldn’t get over the top for the brass ring, but they brought Joe Montana to town and made the AFC Championship Game in 1993, and produced the top seed in the AFC in both 1995 and 1997, along with another postseason appearance in 1994.
The only year that was a disappointment in this run was 1996. Nebraska reached the Big 12 Championship Game with a chance at a national title before an upset loss to Texas took them out of contention.
Kansas City started the season 9-4 before losing three games at the end and missing the playoffs on a tiebreaker. Perhaps this alone reveals how good Farmbelt Football was at this time—neither of those years are terrible, but in the context of 1993-97, they’re the disappointments.
It was the glory era of Tom Osborne’s Nebraska Cornhuskers and Marty Schottenheimer’s Kansas City Chiefs. All in all, 1993-97 meant a lot of fun football weekends for the fan base that backed both. You watched championship teams on Saturday. You watched very good teams on Sunday. It’s tough to ask for much more.
Read more about the 1993 Nebraska Cornhuskers
Read more about the 1994 Nebraska Cornhuskers
Read more about the 1995 Nebraska Cornhuskers
Read more about the 1997 Nebraska Cornhuskers
Read more about the 1993 Kansas City Chiefs
Read more about the 1995 Kansas City Chiefs
Read more about the 1997 Kansas City Chiefs