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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 27, 1995)
Sports Tuesday, November 21, 1995 Page 6 | Game Day 1 notebook Erlfebraska Oklahoma 1 37 0 Nebraska quarterback Tommie Frazier was named an All-Ameri can by both the Football Writers Association of America and the Walter Camp Football Foundation, and center Aaron Graham was a Football News All-American. Jared Tomich was a second-team selec tion. Nebraska WILL linebacker Terrell Farley was named the Asso ciated Press Big Eight defensive newcomer of the year. Green was named the freshman of the year. * * * With Ohio State’s 31-23 loss at Michigan Saturday, the path is set for the Fiesta Bowl, where Nebraska most likely will play Florida. The Gators beat Florida State 35-24 Saturday, but still must beat Arkan sas in the Southeastern Conference championship game this Saturday to finish with a 12-0 record. * * * With the Buckeyes’ loss, the AP and USA Today/Coaches polls un derwent some changes. In the AP poll, the Huskers picked up 51 first place votes, seven more than last week. Florida is second with 11 first-place votes, 40 points behind Nebraska. In the USA Today/ Coaches Poll, Nebraska has 55 first place votes, while Florida has seven. * * * Jamel Williams’ interception return was Nebraska’s fifth inter ception return for a touchdown this season. When Tony Veland re turned a fumble for a touchdown later in the game, it marked the defense’s sixth touchdown of the year. * * * Williams finished offthe final 5 yards of his 36-yard interception return by high-stepping into the end zone. Osborne said the officials warned him that they almost threw a flag on the play. “I wanted to hug Jamel, and I wanted to wring his neck,” Coach Tom Osbomc said. “I could not believe the striding into the end zone after all we’ve been through. Guys get excited, but we’ve cer tainly talked a lot about it.” * * * Oklahoma coach Howard Schnellenbcrger sounded as if he had mixed feelings about playing in Memorial Stadium on Friday. “Lincoln is a tough place to play in because of its fine football team and fine coaches and fine fans,” Schnellenberger said. “It wasn’t very loud here. Not nearly as loud as some other places, but I was happy for that. I think they were being kind to us.” Oklahoma suffered consecutive shutouts for the first time since 1965. The Sooners lost 12-0 to Oklahoma State last week. * * * The shutout was the first time Nebraska has shut out Oklahoma since a 7-0 win in 1942. Overall it was the ninth time the Huskers had shut out the Sooners. The margin of 37 points was the biggest spread for a Nebraska victory since a 44-6 win in 1928. * * * Nebraska is the third school to have 35 wins in three seasons. To ledo( 1969-71 )and Brigham Young (1983-85) are the others. Compiled by Senior Reporters Trevor Parks and Derek Samson. NU earns top seed in region By Mitch Sherman Senior Editor The Nebraska volleyball team learned Sunday afternoon that the road to Amherst, Mass., and the Final Four will not be an easy journey. Three participants in the 1994 Fi nal FourjointheNo. 1 Comhuskersin the Central Region of the NCAA Tour nament. Nebraska, 27-1, solidified its spot as a top seed and regional host this weekend in Omaha by winning its 17th Big Eight Tournament champi onship in the past 20 years. No. 8 UCLA, 21-8 is the second seed in the Central Region, No. 7 Ohio State, 21-7 is the region’s third seed and 26-7 Penn State, ranked No. 10 in the nation, is the fourth seed. Penn State, which defeated Nebraska last season in the finals of the Mideast Regional, lost to the Huskers in three games on Aug. 25 at the NU Coli seum. “They’re a different team, and we’re a different team,” Nebraska setter and team captain Christy Johnson said, “but they still wear the same uniforms. So it will be good to see them again.” To face the Nittany Lions, Ne braska first must defeat either 20-13 Indiana or George Mason, 20-10, in the tournament’s second round on Saturday at 7:30 p.m., at the Coli seum. Wednesday at 6:30 p.m., Indi ana and George Mason will fight for the right to play Nebraska, which was granted a first-round bye. Tickets for the second-round match will go on sale today at 8 a.m. “Indiana is very good,” Nebraska coach Terry Pettit said. “I don’t know anything about George Mason, but they must be good if they won their conference.” George Mason, which defeated William & Mary in five games on Nov. 18 to claim the Colonial Ath letic Conference championship, is led by one of the country’s most prolific hitters, junior Virag Domokos. The 6 foot-3 native of Budapest, Hungary, is hitting .444, second in the nation to Aycan Gokberk of Florida. If Nebraska advances to the re gional semifinals, it Will play host to either Penn State or the winner of the Siena-Georgia Tech match at 7:30 p.m., on Dec. 8. The Central Region championship match will beheld Dec. 9 at 7:30 p.m. Other top seeds include: 26-2 Stanford (Pacific Region), 33-1 Florida (East Region) and 29-0 Ha waii (Mountain Region). The winner of the Central Region will face the winner of the Mountain Region in a national semifinal match at the Mullins Center on the campus of the Univer sity of Massachusetts on Dec. 14. Nebraska has faced six of the tournament’s top 16 seeds, defeating Pacific, Notre Dame, Florida, Texas and Penn State, and losing to Stanford. “I’m so thankful that we got to play Florida and have it go five games,” Johnson said. “Teams like Stanford get that all the time. I’m glad we got a chance to do that at least once.” Pettit said the tournament selection See PETTIT on 8 Jon Waller/DN Nebraska spiit end Brendan Holbein drags Oklahoma’s Larry Bush and Broderick Simpson after making a catch for 10 yards. Holbein caught two passes for 20 yards. Dominant defense drives Huskers past OU By Derek Samson Senior Reporter ~ For most of Nebraska’s 37-0 win over Oklahoma Saturday, kicker Kris Brown’s efforts were about the only offense the Comhuskers could pro duce. But that was all the Huskers needed. The Nebraska defense recorded eight tackles for losses, had two sacks and two interceptions, and picked up its first shutout of the Sooners since 1942 in front of75,662 fans at Memo rial Stadium. “I don’l think they ever really threat ened to score,” Nebraska coach Tom Osborne said. “So I was very proud of the overall effort the defense gave. I thought they really played a great ball game.” Nebraska turned its first posses sion into the longest drive of the first half—12 plays, 67 yards — but had to settle for a 31 -yard field goal from Brown for a 3-0 lead. That was all the defense wanted. “It was a great effort by everyone on defense,” defensive tackle Chris tian Peter said. “It’s always a goal to get a shutout. We knew when we scored that the rest was on our back. If they don’t score any points, they don’t win.” But the defense decided to add even more on Oklahoma’s first pos session, when linebacker Jamel Will iams intercepted an Eric Moore pass and returned it 36 yards for a touch down to put Nebraska ahead 10-0 with 8:36 remaining in the first quar ter. Neither offense could get much going, as Nebraska held Oklahoma to minus-24 yards rushing in the first quarter. The second quarter was much of the same story, with both offenses getting shut down, and Oklahoma to taling only 17 yards on the ground. Nebraska'mqwever, was able to add points with one second remaining in the first half. Brown kicked his second field goal of the game—a 27 yarder — to give the Huskers a 13-0 halftime advantage. Brown kicked three field goals and added four extra points to break the school record for most points in a season by a kicker. The previous record — 87 points — was held by Gregg Barrios in 1990. Osborne said he knew the Husker offense might have trouble against Oklahoma. The Nebraska offense was held without a touchdown for the first three quarters of the game. The last time Nebraska was held without a touch down for three quarters was last year against Oklahoma (a 13-3 Nebraska win). The Cornhuskers did not score in the first quarter for the first time since beating Washington State 35-21 on Sept. 30. “We felt that the strongest part of their football team was their defense,’ Osborne said. “I really believe that their front seven was probably the best that we’ve played this year. I felt that they had a good enough defense, and if they were playing at the top of their game, it would be tough to move the ball on them extensively.” After both teams traded punts to begin the second half, the Nebraska defense again came up big. Sooner running back James Allen was hit by linebacker Jared Tomich, causing a fumble after a 2-yard gain. Safety Tony Veland scooped up the ball and re turned it 57 yards for a touchdown. Veland, one of 21 seniors who played their final game in Memorial Stadium, said he couldn’t have asked for a better ending after coming to Nebraska as a quarterback. “I started out as quarterback, and I thought I’d be scoring all these touch downs,” Veland said. “Then to switch to defense, and Finally end up scoring wasjustagreat feeling. I wanted to go out with a bang.” Nebraska’s defense forced the Sooners to punt again on their next possession—one of 10 Sooner punts in the game — and Mike Fullman returned it 48 yards to the Oklahoma 32-yard line. But the Huskers only managed 14 yards in seven plays and settled for Brown’s 35-yard field goal, which gave Nebraska a 23-0 lead with 28 seconds left in the third quarter. The Huskers Finally got their oF fense going on their next possession, as they marched 74 yards in five plays and capped it with a 38-yard touch down pass from Tommie Frazier to Jon Vedral. Frazier, who finished with 128 yards passing and 35 yards rushing, said the Sooners threw some new things at Nebraska. “They were doing some things that kind of caught us oft-guard,” Frazier said. “I don’t think I played a bad game. I went out there and did things I normally do. They just did some things that other teams weren’t able to do, but we were also able to move the See GAME on 8