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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 1999)
■ I Nebraska cornerback Ralph Brown has been named a semi finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award. Brown is one of 12 players up for the award and the only Big 12 rep resentative. The award honors the best defensive back in college football annually. ■ 4 Kansas State gave up its first touchdown of the season in the second half when running back Darrell Bush of Baylor scored. Bush ran for a 4-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. The only other points that KSU had given up prior to that in the second half were due to a field goal by Texas. The Big 12 Conference soccer tournament will be held from Nov. 3 to 6 in San Antonio, Texas. Nebraska is the No. 1 seed, Texas A&M is second and Missouri is third. The Huskers will face Texas Tech in the first round. Other first round matchups include Baylor vs. Texas, A&M vs. Iowa State and Missouri vs. Colorado. ■ Texas held Darren Davis, the Big 12’s leading rusher, to a sea son-low 67 yards on 24 carries. Davis has dropped to fifth in the nation in rushing at 145.5 yards per game. " ■ The Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week was quarterback Mike Moschetti of Colorado. Moschetti led the Buffaloes to a 38-24 win over Oklahoma. He passed for four touchdowns and ran for another while completing 22 of 31 passes for 382 yards. Moschetti had been figured as doubtful for the game beforehand with a shoulder injury. ■ Defensive honors went to nose tackle Mike Marriott of Missouri. Marriott played a major role in the Tigers holding Texas Tech to 9 yards rushing. He had five tackles - two of which were sacks. ■ Bobby Newcombe of Nebraska received the special teams honor after single-handedly sparking the Huskers to a 24-17 win over Kansas. Newcombe returned a punt for an 86-yard touchdown and caught the game-winning touch down pass of 49 yards. He was also used as a valuable decoy in the Huskers’ attack time and time again on fake reverses. Newcombe would be leading the nation in punt returns with a 23.5 yard average, but he is two returns short of the 1.2 returns per game minimum. Husker Head Coach Frank Solich said that Newcombe con tributed in many ways to the victo ry* “We have some excellent punt return people, and Bobby’s ability showed through not only on spe cial teams but also on offense as well,” Solich said. Notebook compiled by staff writer Joshua Camenzind. NU fine-tunes I i :HEl3nHratfira'3B9ffiiS5k .'•!,■;•-KTs:^ri- . •••* - r MIKE WARREN/DN NEBRASKA SPLIT eld Matt Davison tries to break free of the grasp of Kansas defensive back Andrew Davison. Davison Is part of a complex scheme of relayfif plays la and oat f« the Nuskers. Complex audibles force Nebraska to race clock By Darren Ivy Senior staff writer By the time junior receiver Matt Davison gets done with a typical game, his voice is hoarse and his throat hurts. - - It’s not from trash talking with the defensive backs but rather from relaying plays from Coach Frank Solich to quarterback Eric Crouch in the huddle. “It gets pretty loud, and you have to yell the play, and you are a foot away,” said Davison, who didn’t relay plays against Kansas on Saturday for the first time this season- “It gets pretty tough sometimes to hear, and you have to read lips.” Normally, the tight ends and receivers who bring plays into games go unnoticed. But like messengers in ancient battles who relayed the com mands of the general to front line troops, their roles are essential to a team’s success. “So much of football is commu nication,” Davison said. “You tell Eric. Eric tells the huddle. It gets from one to another to another. It is very important that it gets translated exactly right because so many of our plays are closely related in terms of wording.” Where it gets complicated is when Solich doesn’t make the call fast enough, one player doesn’t hear the play and Crouch has to repeat it, the guy bringing in the play doesn’t hustle or the referee spots the ball quickly, starting the 25-second clock before NU is ready. A combination of all four hap pened in Texas two weeks ago, said sophomore tight end Tracey Wistrom. As a result, the Comhuskers were forced to bum all three of their sec ond-half timeouts in the first 17 min utes and didn’t have one left to stop die clock in the end. “It may have cost us in the Texas game, but I guess you never know,” Wistrom said. Whether it cost NU or not, the burned timeouts were a sore issue with Husker fans on weekly call-in shows and letters to the editor. NU made some adjustments before Kansas, the most notable leav ing Davison in the entire game. It seemed to work, as NU had to bum only one timeout to avoid a delay of game penalty. To understand why timeouts are called, it is important to understand the NU system. Solich said Nebraska’s offensive style, which uses multiple formations and allows quarterbacks to audible at the line of scrimmage, usually Please see PLAYS on 8 Comeback win takes Texas into high gear By Joshua Camenzind Staff writer Texas’ last-second, 44-41 win at Iowa State saw two programs headed in opposite directions. The Longhorns have won their last three games since slipping to Kansas State, while the Cyclones have dropped four of their last five. UT, at 7-2, is on a roll- one hat has seen it beat upstart Oklahoma, upset Nebraska and squeak by ISU (4-4). The win in Ames, Iowa, was a test of the Longhorns’ character. Iowa State led Texas 20-17 at half time Saturday-a week after UT upset the then-No. 3-ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers. Head Coach Mack Brown said that his team might have still been thinking about the NU game onthe way toAmes. “After a win like the one we had against Nebraska,” Brown said, “people in Austin tend to tell the players how great they are. But the young players sometimes forget that they have to play the next week after a big win. “We have to play better against Oklahoma State than we did against Iowa State, or we will get beat” Brown said that it is tough these days to get a college football team up for games it is supposed to win. “You have got to convince your team that every game will probably come down to the fourth quarter,” Brown said. “You have got to beat the teams that you are supposed to and then try and upset somebody else. But if you are not mature enough to go on the road and beat the teams you are not supposed to, then you are not a good enough team to be called a champion.” The Longhorns came into die game with a plan to stop ISU’s Darren Davis. They succeeded, holding die Big 12’s leading rusher to 67 yards. But stopping the Cyclone rusher led to a career day by quarterback Sage Rosenfels. Rosenfels passed for a career-high 291 yards and two touchdowns to keep ISU close. “They did the best job of throwing the ball against us that anybody has done all year,” Brown said. “We didn’t make the plays we needed to, but that was because the quarterback Sage did such a tremendous job throwing the ball” Texas seemed to have the game in hand several times in the second halfbut could not finish the job. The Cyclones were down 14 points with a little less than 10 minutes to go but came back with two late scores from Davis and Ennis Haywood. “. -Vs'V Texas was able to drive downtiie field late and kick an 18-yard gatne winning field goal with time expiring. 4 UT benefited from another out-; standing performance from Applewhite. He threw for 345 yards while completing 30 of 40 passes. - f ISU Coach Dan McCamey saidthat ? the Texas sophomore gunner is one of 4! the best in the conference. “He is outstanding, he has a great touch, he does not make mistakes, he , has tremendous vision, he has a strong . arm and is an outstanding leaderof that offense,” McCamey said. “When this Please see UT on 8 . Pettit’s predictions coming true for NU John Gaskins Nebraska Volleyball Coach Terry Pettit said his team’s three game dismantling of Kansas State on Saturday night wasn’t a gut check match. Wasn’t a gut check? Excuse me? I beg your pardon? We in the media wouldn’t buy it. * YcM^meanto tell us that beating a learn - a team that beat you for the '-m|ttim£in 59matches a month vol^ybalf atmosphere— in a match . tha$would ermer leave yovLpm"* - v le&guetitle hunt, something you’ve* l$st dhly twice at22^ears of coach tmg, wastft a gut chock? How about ^os^to the firsfcplace team a fiye-game matches against ranked teams to 0-4 on the season? wk Wasn’t a guit.check? m Yeah, and ‘‘Game'of the ;> Gpntury” against Oklahoma wash’t gut check for the 1971 Nebraska f jfootballjteam. And the fill of *jjy ‘ Athens wasn’t a gut cheek for the ^ Romans. And the remake of “Play that Funky Music, White Boy” was n’t a gut check for Vanilla Ice’s one hit-wonder career. Come on, Terry! “Nice try,” Pettit said to a reporter after being asked what the win would do for NU’s title chances. “You guys are looking for that needle in the haystack. There’s no needle. It’s a gut check every tune.” We ought to buy it. Because Terry Pettit is die coach, and we’re the media. The man knows what he’s talking about. We should heed the Dean of Big 12 volleyball’s words. We should heed them, much the same way we should have heeded them all along. Since August, since the Huskers lost their first of five matches to ranked teams and their first at the Coliseum in 65 matches against Pacific in the season opener, Pettit has said he only cares about how his team is playing in December, when NCAA Tournament time rolls around and cream rises to the top. But we’ve been caught up in a very slow rise. For two months, we’ve seen NU follow a 32-2 mad dash-to-the Final Four 1998 season with a dabble of inexperience, a dabble of bad luck and a dabble of critical breakdowns in its compli cated 6-2 offense. We’ve questioned some oflf-the wall decisions the 23-year veteran Please see PREDICTION on 8