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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 6, 1994)
Sports Tuesday, December 6,1994 Page 7 ' ■' . •. " .... ■' . it Huskers hope to mirror 1983 in all ways but one By Derek Samson Senior Reporter In 1983, Nebraska had one of the most explosive offenses in the history of college football. The Comhuskers started off the season with a win in tne kickott Classic and finished the regular season with a 12 0 record and a No. 1 rank ing. On Jan. 2, it lost 31-30 to Miami in the Orange Bowl. However, that 1983 team is still considered by many to be the best Ne Stelnkuhler braska team ever. This year, the Comhuskers ran through West Virginia in the Kickoff Classic and have kept a perfect mark going into the Orange Bowl against Miami. With offensive tackle Zach Wiegert a finalist for the Lombardi Trophy and a fa vorite for the Outland Award, it strikes an other similarity with the 1983 team: Dean Steinkuhler. Wiegert finished behind Miami’s Warren Sapp for the Lombardi Award. A consensus All-American in 1983, Steinkuhler came away with both the Lombardi and Outland Awards, the last Husker lineman to earn both. But Steinkuhler didn’t land the trophy that the 1983 team featuring Turner Gill, Mike Rozier and Irving Fryar set out to win — the national championship. “Our team still gets talked about highly by many people in Nebraska, and that makes it (1983 season) special,” Steinkuhler said from his home in Syracuse. “We were a great team, but we didn’t get accomplished what we had set out to do. That’s a disappoint ment that I could never forget, and I hope this year’s team doesn’t have to deal with it, too.” Steinkuhler — who played eight years with the Houston Oilers — was an assistant coach for Syracuse High School this fall and is now in the process of building a new home. The only opportunities the former offen sive guard has had to watch the Huskers this year are the televised games. From what he has seen, Steinkuhler said he would give the edge to this year’s squad in a comparison to the 1983 team. “I don’t know if you can really compare because it’s over a decade of difference between the two,” he said. “I would like to think we had a very good offensive team, especially at that time. Overall, I’d have to say they are probably better because they have a better defense.” After coming within a 2-point conversion of winning the national championship in 1983, Steinkuhler said it was especially dif ficult to watch Nebraska come within a field goal of doing the same in the 18-16 Orange Bowl loss to Florida State last year. “I really ’felt bad after that game, mainly because of the way Nebraska outplayed Florida State and still lost,” he said. “Coach (Tom) Osborne deserves to win the national championship and so do the players. “Last year’s team deserved that, and I felt bad for the players because I know how they felt. It’s a tough thing to swallow.” As this season unfolds much like the 1983 season, Steinkuhler did not hide his feelings about the final parallel between 1983 and 1994. “If we end up playing Miami in the Or ange Bowl, then once again, Nebraska will start with a disadvantage,” he said. “When you play a Florida team in the Orange Bowl, not only do they have the advantage with the climate, but with the fan support. It’s worth three to seven points. So this year, Nebraska will have to be just that much better.” Steinkuhler said he wanted Nebraska to beat Miami for the Husker teams that have fallen to the Hurricanes in the past, espe cially in 1983. “I played with and against guys in the NFL that were on their championship team (in 1983),” he said. “They don’t let you forget it. They never did. So I would love to beat them this year in the Orange Bowl for the national championship.” Nee says competition, not execution, lacking By Todd Walkmhortt Staff Reporter Nebraska coach Danny Nee said that he was pleased with his team’s performance in the eighth annual Ameritas Classic last weekend but was disappointed with the lack of competition. The Huskers won the seventh consecutive* Ameritas Classic by soundly defeating both Morehead State and Idaho State over the week end. “I thought there would be a lot more competition in the Ameritas Classic,” he said. ‘‘I thought the games would be closer.” Nee said Nebraska’s dominance was mainly because of the play of guards Jaron Boone, Erick Strickland and Jason Glock. “Glock was open every time he moved this weekend,” Nee said. “I thought a lot of people played at real high levels. I thought both days Nebraska played good basketball.” Despite two impressive victo ries, the Cornhuskers still had areas of their game to work on, including ball handling. Many players received valuable playing time this weekend, includ ing sophomore center Mikki Moore. “Mikki Moore has done a real good job around the basket block ing a tot of shots,” Nee said. “I’m really pleased that he got more play ing time.” In addition to Moore, the Husk ers played pressure defense with Boone, Tom Wald, Terrance Badgett and Melvin Brooks, Nee said. “I felt the quickness and agility of our players hindered Morehead State’s shots,” Nee said. “When you can hold people to those kind of numbers, you’ve got to be happy.” Nebraska will face Creighton on Wednesday night and No. 15 Michi gan State on Saturday afternoon in a game that will be televised by ABC. “It’s a big week for Nebraska basketball,” Nee said. “We are go ing to try to get the students in volved by letting them in early and (giving them) T-shirts.” Nee said that he was disappointed that more students were not buying season tickets this year. Student season ticket sales declined by about 700 this year. “I’m disappointed,” Nee said. “There are a lot of students that work and do other things. It (at tending games) is more of an alumni thing, but I like it when the students are there.” JaffHaltor/DN Nebraska's Melvin Brooks grabs tho ball away from Idaho State’s Jim Potter In the championship game of tho Amerltas Classic Saturday. Tho Huskers will face Creighton Wednesday and Michigan State Saturday. NU volleyball steals the sports spotlight from football Are you ready for showtime? Well, it doesn’t matter. Because even if you aren’t, it’s here. Showtime has arrived, and it’s in the form of NCAA volleyball. The No. 1 Nebraska volleyball team rocked the NU Coliseum Saturday, playing in the most exciting match of the season and winning its first match of the 1994 NCAA tourna ment over George Washington. In the year of the undefeated, untouchable Nebraska football team, the unthinkable has happened. The mighty Huskers have been upstaged. And it’s not even another football team that’s upstaged them. They’ve been upstaged by the Husker volleyball team. Since the two seasons began back in August and September, I have sat in the press box and covered every home football game and four road games. Not once did I want to stand up and cheer even close to as much as I did Saturday night while sitting in the press area during the first game of the volleyball match. Be careful. Don’t go calling me any names or wondering about my mental state. If you haven’t been to a volleyball match, you won’t know what I am talking about. Now, if the Huskers win the Or ange Bowl, it might be a different story, but as of right now, I am declaring the volleyball team the official most exciting team on cam pus. The atmosphere at the Coliseum was unbelievable Saturday night. And when this BIG Russian girl from Moscow started to slam the ball through the floor in the pre match warmups^you kind of sensed something special was about to hap pen. Once again, if you didn’t see Svetlana Vtyurina, you absolutely cannot get a sense of how large this woman is. I mean that with with all due respect, Ms. Vtyurina. Sveta, as she is affectionately referred to by her coaches, fans and teammates, is more like a Russian cannon than a Russian rifle. To get somewhat of an idea of what she looks like, picture Ne braska basketball player Mikki Mitch Sherman Moore. OK, now Sveta is seven inches shorter than Mikki, but she weighs about 30 pounds more than Nebraska’s starting center. And her hair is a little different, too. Then, as if the Russian rocket wasn’t enough for the Husker spikers to worry about, another one of the George Washington players started to warm up. Her name, Liu Li, is pronounced the same forward as it is backward, but that really isn’t important. Li served. First, she went back behind the serve line. Way behind the serve line. It looked like she was leaving the Coliseum. But she stopped somewhere under the stands. Instead of a normal serve where a player bends her elbow approxi mately 90 degrees and strikes the ball with her hand, Li rotated her arm, apparently showing off the fact that either she has no joints or her elbow has been surgically al tered. She did this side windmill kind of thing, and the ball cleared the net by the hair on Nebraska coach Terry Pettit’s head. Then it started to go up. 1 seriously think I saw Li’s serve go into the stands of the Coli seum, hover over some guy’s head, spin around and come back toward the court. Three Huskers dove, but it was a hopeless cause. The volleyball was magnetically attracted to the floor. Li is from Harbin, China. She attended Qi Qi Har No. 10 School. I’m not sure what Qi Qi Har means in Chinese, but I think it has some thing to do with a magical serve able to defy the laws of gravity. All of this happened before the match even started. When it finally did start, what a treat it was. Back and forth. Back and forth. Li, Allison Weston, Kelly Aspegren, Vtyurina, Peggy Meyer. I almost jumped out of my chair when Meyer blocked the kill at tempt of Sveta to win the heart wrenching first game 17-15. From that point on, everything was anticlimactic. And the Huskers took care of business. They get a chance to do it all again on Friday when Colorado comes to town. Nebraska, with a win, will finish off a pretty complete job of revenge on the Buffaloes, who took the con ference crown from Nebraska last year. Not only did Nebraska take the title back, they can end Colorado's season for good Friday by beating the Buffaloes for the fourth time this year. But if you are reading this and you got excited all of a sudden about volleyball, you had better act quickly. Only a few general admis sion tickets remain. If not, you will just have to wait until the Orange Bowl. Sherman b a sophomore news-editorial major and a Daily Nebraskan senior reporter.