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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 9, 1992)
I Huskers blow out No. 13 Jayhawks By Nick Hytrek Senior Reporter It was another big game. It was another nationally televised contest. And it was another blowout of a highly rated opponent for the Nc raska football team. The No. 7 Cornhuskcrs scored 35 hrst-half points and cruised to a 49-7 win over No. 13 Kansas Saturday before a national television audience on ESPN and 76,165 fans at Memo rial Stadium. The Husker offense rolled up 533 total yards — 351 of those on the ground — on a Jay haw k defense that had been giving up only 283.3 yards per game and only 113.8 rushing yards a game. Last week, the Huskcrs defeated Colorado 52-7, and the second con secutive lopsided win over a rated team left Nebraska coach Tom Osborne confused. “The last two weeks have been hard for me to explain," he said. “1 thought both ol them would be lough games.” Entering the game, Osborne said, he was especially worried about Kan sas. “I’m always a little more concerned with a team that can run the ball, a team that has the type of diversity that Kansas had shown,” he said. “I really thought that if we played real well we might beat them by a couple touch downs.” Also worrying Osborne was the fact that the Huskcrs seemed a little Hat in the locker room before the game and might not have been ca pable of pulling out the same effort as they had against Colorado a week earlier. "The thing that was bothering me was just whether we’d be able to play hard and play with emotion tw o weeks in a row," he said. "I didn’t feel quite the same attitude that I fell last week.” Nebraska I-back Calvin Jones, w ho rushed for 107 yards and two touch downs on 13 carries, said the Huskcrs were ready to play. “We were ready to go,” Jones said. “I don’t know' if it was quite like it was a week ago against Colorado. That was one of the concerns with the coaches was how we were going to come out and play alter a so-called big victory last week. “The team stepped up well.” Husker defensive tackle John Parrella said the defense was fired up from the start. “We felt this was another big game,” he said. “When the big game’s on the line, we come to play. ’ It was obvious that Nebraska had come to play on the Huskcrs’ first Nebraska-Kansas Scoring Summary |H .I-1 m NU-Armslrong, 11 yd, pass from Frazier (Bennett kick) NU-Dixon, 46 yd, pass from Frazier (Bennett kick) KU-Ooug^as, 4 yd. run (Eichloft kick) NMones, 5 yd, run (Bennett kick) U-Jones. 6 yd. run (Bennett kick) NU-Byrd, 30 yd. interception return (Bennett kick) NU-Lewis, 5 yd. run (Bennettkick) bally Nebraskan possession. On the second play, I back Derek Brown broke through the Kansas defense for a 24-yard gain. Brown, who led all rushers with 156 yards on 15 carries, said that play set the tone for the rest of the game. “After that first carry, I thought that alter that we could do anything we wanted with them,’' Brown said. “Wccould have run anylhingal them.” Three plays later, freshman quar terback Tommie Fra/icr threw a 36 yard touchdown pass to tight end Gerald Armstrong. But Nebraska was lucky to get that first score, Osborne said. “I hale to admit it, but that first touchdown pass was a disaster,” he said. “It wasn ’t even close to the play that was called. How it worked I’ll never know.” Nevertheless, with only a minute and a half gone in the game, Nebraska had a 7-0 lead. The two teams traded punts until the end ol the lirst quarter, when the Huskers began driving again. On the I irst play of the second quarter, Fra/icr and Armstrong hooked up again, this time from 11 yards to make the score 14-0. Fra/ier finished the game 6-for II passing for 161 yards and three touchdowns. Once again, he didn’t throw an interception and the Huskcr offense refused to turn the ball over. It was soon 21-0 alter the Huskcr defense held Kansasagain and Fra/ier threw his third touchdown pass of the game. Nebraska’s defense held Kansas to 273 total yards and only 128 yards rushing, 120 yards under the Jayhawks’ average going into the game. Kansas did show an offensive spark on its next possession. The Jayhawks went 80 yards in eight plays and cut the Husker lead to 21-7 on Maurice Douglas’ 4-yard touchdown run. It took Nebraska less than two minutes to get that score back. After Dixon returned the kickoff 28 yards to the Nebraska 39, Jones capped a five play drive with a 5-yard touchdown run. Jones scored again in the quarter on a 6-yard run to give the Huskers a 35-7 lead at halftime. At that point, Nebraska had al ready piled up 343 yards in offense, compared with Kansas’ 157. Brown said most of the credit was due to the offensive line. “I can’t congratulate the offensive line enough because they do such great jobs,” he said. “I’m just really happy to be right behind them.” After the second play of the second half, few Jayhawks were happy. Husker safety Tyrone Byrd stepped in front of a Chip Hillcary pass, inter cepted it and returned it 30 yards for another Nebraska touchdown to make the score 42-7. “I just really focused on my re ceiver,” Byrd said. “I got a really good break on the ball. I looked back just in time and the ball was right there. “I was just really determined to catch it and make sure I got in the end /one.” Nebraska got in the Kansas end /one once more on a 5-yard run by Lance Lew is midway through the third quarter. From then on, the Nebraska reserves held Kansas in check and ran out the clock. Now at 7-1 and 4-0 in the Big Eight, the Huskers hold the upper hand in the race for the conference championship. Osborne said lie hoped the race for a second straight Orange Bow l berth wouldn’t overshadow his team’s accomplishments in the past two games. “My experience over the years is that these kind of games somehow get written off rather quickly,” he said. "I hope that just because it was a sound victory on our part that it isn’t over looked somehow.” That should be hard to do, Jones said. “If you look atlast week’s film and this week’s film, it speaks for itself," lie said. “This Nebraska team has really been playing well. Everyone is coming together. “I think it’s going to be great to sec how we finish the year.” ■ Kansas team on rebound from painful loss to NU By Jeff Singer Senior Reporter___ As the Kansas football players left Memorial Stadium Saturday night, they were showered with the chant “Beat CU . .. BcatCU.” But the Nebraska crowd’s support of the Jayhawks for their gamcagainsl Colorado next week failed to help case the pain of the 49-7 defeat to the Comhuskcrs. . The loss dropped Kansas into sec ond place in the Big Eight and all but dashed the Jayhawks’ hopes of going to the Orange Bowl for the first time in 24 years. “It knocks my hopes down a little bit, because it was good to be in the driver’s scat lor as long as we were, but now the Big Eight title doesn’t rest in our hands anymore,” Kansas offen sive guard Hcsslcy Hempstead said. The 13th-rankcd Jayhawks lost their first conference game to drop their record to 4-1 in Big Eight play and 7-2 overall. Kansas quarterback Chip Hillcary said it was embarrassing to lose by 42 points in such an important game. “I definitely was expecting a lot closer game, and I think everybody around us was,” Hillcary said. He had -St-- troublcallnighigctling the Jayhawks’ Erik Unger/DN \ offense in gear. “We just didn’t show up to play,” he said. Kansas defensive tackle Dana Stubblefield agreed.,.4 “Everybody expected us to play better than that,” Stubblefield said. “I’m not surprised at the way we played—I'm disappointed at the way we played.” Coming into the game, Kansas had either led or been tied at halftime in 16 of its last 19 games. But at the half Saturday, the Jayhawks trailed 35-7. Hillcary said Kansas’ slow start led to its defeat. “It seems like every game we’ve come into this year, we’ve set a tone early by scoring in the first series, and that didn’t happen today,” Hillcary said. “It’s hard when you’re down three or four touchdowns rightolT the bat— I think that has a lot to do mentally. With a Nebraska football team that can keep pulling points on the board, it’s tough.” . * Hillcary, who’entered the game with only eight interceptions this year, threw two against the Huskers. He said he wished the fans that wanted Kansas to beat Colorado next Satur day would have been more supportive of the Jayhawks against Nebraska. “We had a hard time with the Ians,” Hillcary said. “They had in crcdiblc noise in thisplacc,and I think that’s a big factor.” As for Kansas’ postseason hopes, the second-place Big Eight team goes into a bowl coalition involving nu merous major bowls, while the third place team from the conference will play in the Aloha Bowl on Christmas Day. The Kansas players said they would rather beat Colorado next week and solidify a spot in the coalition than spend Christmas in Honolulu. “Rebounding won’t be a problem — I’m looking forward to the Colo rado game,” Hempstead said. The Jayhaw ks’ only other loss this year was a 27-23 setback to Califor nia, and Kansas went on to post a four game winning streak following that defeat. Stubblefield said he w as expecting the same kind of Kansas resilience this time around. “We did it once and we can do it again,” he said. Hempstead agreed. “We’re having one of our best seasons around here that Kansas has had in quite a while, so we’ve just got to keep keeping it on,” Hempstead said. •V- ' Clockwise from top: Derek Brown turns the corner against the Jay hawks. Brown rushed for 156 yards on 15 carries, the second highest rushing total of his NU career, Nebraska’s Corey Dixon catches a 46-yard touchdown pass from Tommie Frazier while evading KU’s Robert Vaughn in the second quarter. * NU s Steve Carmer, left, Travis Hill, middle and John Reece, right, celebrate an unsuccessful KU first down attempt in the second quarter. r Tight end Gerald Armstrong scores on a second-quarter Tommie Frazier pass to put the Cornhuskers up 14-0. i MMm 1992 AS OF 11/7/92 RECORD PTS PVS. jL Miami (61) 8-0-0 1,549 _2^ 2 Alabama (1) 9-0-0 1,463 _3 ^ Michigan 8-0-1 1,424 4 4 Texas A&M 9-0-0 1,340 _5 5 Florida St. 8-1-0 1,313 6 6 Washington 8-1-0 1,201 1 Nebraska 7-1-0 1,192 7^ 9 Notre Dame 7-1-1 1,092 8 9 Arizona 6-2-1 1,074 12 EO Syracuse 8-1-0 1,033 10 LI Florida 6-2-0 886 14 L2 Georgia 7-2-0 830 15 L3 Colorado 7-1-1 788 16 E4 N. Carolina St. 7-2-1 699 17 L5 Stanford 7-3-0 626 21 L6 Mississippi St. 7-2-0 588 19 17 Boston College 7-1-1 571 9 L8 Southern Cal 5-2-1 515 11 L9 Ohio St.' 7-2-0 467 22 20 Kansas 7-2-0 370 13 21 Washington St. 7-2-0 298 25 22 Penn SI. 6-3 0 280 23 23 Tennessee 5-3^ 190 24 24 Hawaii_7-1-0 151 25 N. Carolina 7-3-0_67 18 ( ) - First place voles AP A
