Nebraska football: 5 most underrated players in Nebraska Cornhuskers history
By John Buhler
Pick Analysis. S/LB. (1993-96). 4. player. Scouting Report. Mike Minter. 810
Mike Minter was a key defensive player on championship teams at Nebraska.
Some people might remember safety Mike Minter from his days manning the middle of the Carolina Panthers’ secondary for a decade. Others may know him these days as the head coach of the Campbell Fighting Camels. But before any and all of that, Minter was an incredible playmaker on Tom Osborne’s defenses at Nebraska in the mid-1990s.
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After redshirting his first year in Lincoln, Minter played a part in Osborne’s first two championship seasons in Nebraska. He played safety on the 1994 team before moving to linebacker in his last two years with the program, winning a second national title in 1995. In 1996, Minter would earn Second-Team All-Big 12 honors on the Blackshirts defense.
He had five interceptions for 129 yards and a touchdown in his final college season. Minter would go to the expansion-era Panthers in the second round of the 1997 NFL Draft. Carolina was coming off a shocking NFC Championship game appearance in their second season of existence as an NFL franchise. It’s crazy that their big cat brother Jacksonville Jaguars did the same thing in the AFC.
Minter was part of Carolina’s first NFC Championship in franchise history in 2003, coming up one field goal short of winning a Super Bowl. What we can say about Minter as a player was that he brought a championship-pedigree everywhere he went. Though he has been the head coach of Campbell since 2013, he has yet to win more than six games as a head coach in seven seasons.