Meet could give glimpse of national champ
By Erik Unger
Staff Reporter
This week’s; Big Eight Invitational
couid provide a peek at the national
champion, Nebraska coach Francis
Allen said, although the men’s gym
nastics national championships won’t
be held until April.
The Invitational will match Ne
braska, the defending national cham
pion, against Oklahoma, which Allen
called one of the best teams in the
nation.
Oklahoma should be favored, Al
len said, because they have the ad
vantage in experience.
The winner of the Invitational has
gone on to win the national champi
onship nine of the last 14 years, but
Alien said that doesn’t bother him.
The meet is significant, he said.
“But that doesn 't mean we’re in a
must win situation,” Allen said.
Allen said he expects a slow start
from the Huskers in the first part of
the season, but said Oklahoma won’t
be able to beat them later in the sea
son when it really counts.
“They’ll (Oklahoma) score pretty
much the same all year,” Allen said.
Nebraska’s slow start can be at
tributed to the young team they are
competing with this year.
The Huskers graduated four senior
All-American’s, off of last year’s
national championship team and will
be competing with seven freshmen
this year.
Four of those freshmen Burkett
Powell, Che Bowers, Sumner Dar
ling and Dennis Harrison will be
competing in the all-around event.
Allen said he was so confident in
this freshman class that he spent five
out of the seven scholarships he can
offer on them.
“This is the best recruiting class in
the country,’’ Allen said.
He said they arc ail better than
former Nebraska All-American Pat
rick Kirksey was as a freshman and
four will make the U.S. Olympic team
in 1992 and ’96, Allen said.
Allen said, however, that the team
will call on sophomore Josh Saegert
to do the al I-around and lead the team.
“Josh Saegert is our most consis
tent performer,” Allen said. “He’s
the one who is going to establish the
momentum for the team,” he said.
The Huskcrs will host Iowa State,
Air Force and Oklahoma in the Big
Eight Invitational Friday and Satur
day night at the Bob Devancy Sports
Center.
NU’s Mueller
goes to Florida
From Staff Reports
Nebraska tennis player Mat
thias Mueller will play in the
1990 Du Pont National Clay
Court Tennis Championships in
Panama City Beach Fla. The
tournament starts today and runs
through Sunday.
The junior from Hamm,
Germany was one of 32 players
selected for singles competition
by the Intercollegiate Tennis
Coaches Association.
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Shortage of winning teams
may result in empty bowls
The Associated Press
Parity in college football is mak
ing a parody of the bowl games.
If you think it has been a crazy
season thus far, consider the follow
ing:
• There might not be enough teams
for the 19 bowl games. Under NCAA
rules, a team must have a winning
record to qualify for a bowl and only
37 Division I-A teams are assured of
finishing with winning records.
• That includes either Baylor or
Rice, who meet this weekend; the
runner-up in the Big West Confer
ence, whose champion goes to the
California Raisin Bowl, plus Mid
American Conference teams Toledo,
Ball Slate and Western Michigan.
The MAC champion goes to the Rai
sin Bowl and the others are not likely
to be considered by other bowls.
• As many as seven teams that
have agreed to accept bids could play
themselves out of the picture, includ
ing No. 14 Tennessee, which is 5-2-2
with three games remaining. The others
are Air Force (5-5-0), Alabama (5-4
0), Baylor (5-3-1), Indiana (5-3-1),
Michigan State (5-3-1) and Syracuse
(5-3-2).
A rash of upsets would have to
occur for all those teams to blow their
bowl bids but...
“Anything is possible this year,”
said David Cawood, assistant execu
tive director of the NCAA.“Itdoesn’t
surprise me. And because of so many
bowls handing out their invitations
early, there’s more talk of a playoff
than there’s ever been.”
Two bowls have even swiped teams
that were headed elsew here. The Fiesta
Bowl, desperate after Arizona’s nega
tive Martin Luther King Jr. holiday
vote, look Louisville away from the
All American Bowl, which countered
by grabbing Southern Mississippi from
the Independence Bowl.
The bowls always have played
politics, but never as a result of gen
eral elections.
“Who would have thought the Fiesta
Bowl would have affected the Inde
pendence Bowl? It is a strange world
we live in,” Independence Bowl chair
man Brant Goyne said.
In addition, the University of Cali
fornia was criticized by the NAACP
for accepting a bid to the Copper
Bowl in Tucson in the aftermath of
the King vote.
“Nineteen bowl games is too many,
and eight games on Jan. 1 is too
many,” said Steve Hatchell, execu
tive director of the Orange Bowl and
chairman of the Football Bowl Asso
ciation. “We knew a year ago it could
get dangerously close to not having
enough teams to play.”
a will gel even worse next year
when a team must have six wins over
Division I-A opponents to warrant a
bowl bid. If that rule were in effect
this year, Air Force, Baylor and North
Carolina State would not be eligible,
Illinois would not have qualified as
yet and Louisiana Tech and Temple
would not be trying to impress the
Independence Bowl. All claim at least
one Division I-AA team among their
victims.
“A lot of people think there are loo
many bowls,” said John Swofford,
athletic director at the University of
North Carolina and chairman of the
NCAA’s Post-Season Football Sub
committee. ‘‘But our committee does
not have the authority to determine
how many bowls there are.
“As long as the criteria arc met,
we’re required to sanction a bowl.”
The major criteria for new bowls
arc a S2 million letter of credit from a
banking institution, written support
from 20 Division I-A athletic direc
tors and a 50,000-seat stadium al
ready in place.
Thompson
Continued from Page 7
He writes of the overwhelming
media buildup before the 1987 Ne
braska-Oklahoma game—dubbed as
the “Game of the Century II.” He
recalls how former Comhusker quar
terback Steve Taylor smirked at him
during a pregame interview with CBS,
and the feeling he and his teammates
had for three weeks prior to the game,
while Husker players predicted a Ne
braska rout of the Sooners.
Overall, Thompson does an excel
lent job of painting a vivid picture for
his readers. From his first play as a
Sooner, when he scored a touchdown
against North Texas Stale, to his last
— which resulted in a broken leg
against Nebraska — he tells it, evi
dently, like it was.
The guns, the fights, the impro
prieties within the program ... it’s all
here.
The atmosphere described by
Thompson of the Norman, Okla.,
campus was one in which the Sooner
athletes, particularly the football play
ers, were kings, and they got what
they wanted.
Whether it was money, cars, sex or
drugs, they got it, according to Th
ompson.
The book has received endless
criticism since it was released two
months ago, and more than a little of
it has come from Switzer. Perhaps
some of it is deserved, but probably
not all of it.
Switzer has called Thompson a
liar for his allegations. But after fin
ishing the book, one has to examine
the source — actually, both sources.
After all, if it’s a choice between
believing the 22-year-old who went
to prison for his mistakes or the 53
ycar-old who lied and used every
means available to cover up that and
other incidents, who is to be believed?
Huskers
Continued from Page 7
which began Wednesday.
Witherspoon is a four-time honor
roll student and vice-president of the
Honor Society. Beck said called her a
Stanford-type player academically.
Yet Beck said she and her coach
ing staff contemplated passing on
Witherspoon because of something
she’ll have to learn. Even though
Witherspoon is only 5-9, Beck said.
she is a back-to-thc-baskct post player
who will have to adjust to playing
facing the hoop in college. Sopho
more Lee Anna Hicstand, 5-10, is trying
to make the same switch right now for
Nebraska.
But Nebraska went after Wither
spoon, Beck said, partly because
Kansas State and Missouri were other
possibilities. With Witherspoon’s skills
and aggressive nature, Beck said, the
Huskers couldn’t afford that, even is
she does have to learn a new position.