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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 21, 1997)
Brown back on track after kicking slump BROWN from page 7 attempts against Kansas State and Texas Tech. For the season, Brown has now made nine of 12 (75 percent) field goals and has made all 28 of his extra-point attempts. “My confidence level started to pick up last week,” Brown said Saturday. “I figured out my plant foot a lot of the time was getting too far in front of the ball and wouldn’t allow my right hip to come through the ball, which explained why I’d miss all my kicks right. “I looked at it and kind of changed my steps a little bit. It’s all worked out.” In his first two years at Nebraska, Brown made 25 of 35 attempts (71.4 percent). Four of his misses were from 40 yards or longer; but from the 50-plus range, Brown was a perfect two of two. But after his three-field-goal game against the Red Raiders, Brown said he has never felt bet ted:;. think confidence-wise, I’m afjnfhighest?1 Biftwh said. “I feel confident to go out and make any fieldgoal.” Against Washington, Brown set the Nebraska record for most field goals in a career, passing Dale Klein, who hit 27 from 1984 to 1986. Brown has now made 34 field goals in his career, and his 238 points makes him the highest scoring kicker in Husker history and the fourth among all players. I-back Calvin Jones has the record with 252 points from 1991 to 1993. Records don’t concern Brown, but winning does. “I don’t like to go in and get three points, because we want to score a touchdown every time we touch the ball,” Brown said. “But that’s my job and that’s what I’m going to go in and do.” lust I II kicking it 1 After a rocky stair | Kris Brown, who is Nebraska’s highest- 1 scoring kicker in Husker I history, is perfect in his I last attempts. Yardage Made/Missed Opponent 38 missed Akron 34 made Akron 27 missed UCF 21 made UCF 41 missed Washingon 20 made Washington 31 made Washington 31 made Kansas St. 32 made Kansas St. 32 made Texas Tech 41 made Texas Tech 35 made Texas Tech i By Sam McKewon ... Staff Reporter It was as if Penn State Coach Joe Patemo’s voice was an echo of years past: Here we go again. The football ratings world was rocked Sunday when for the second time ip four years, Nebraska (6-0 overall ,anct 3-0 in the Big 12 Conference)vmoved ahead jof Penn State in both The Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll after NU beat Texas Tech 29-0 while the Nittany Lions squeaked by Minnesota, 16-15. Especially surprising was the coaches poll. College football coaches have long advocated not dropping a team from No. 1 if they win. But by moving Nebraska up to first, coaches agreed with the media in the assessment that some perfor mances, even in victory, are too poor to overlook. Big 12 coaches were interested in the Huskers’ move to the top spot and the possibility of Penn State retaking the No. 1 position. “It’s all up for grabs,” said Texas Tech Coach Spike Dykes. “When you get up to the top one or two teams in America, whoever plays the best football that week ought to get the nod. If there’s four undefeated teams up there, I say you give it to whoever the best football team is. “If there’s anybody better than Nebraska out there, I’d sure like to know who that is.” The 1997 season is shaping up much like the 1994 season, when Nebraska lost the top spot to Penn State and then got it back late in the season. In 1994, the No. 3 Huskers beat then-No. 2 Colorado 24-7 and moved to the top spot in the Associated Press Poll. The following week Penn State lost its No. 1 posi tion in the coaches poll after a 35-29 victory over Indiana, a game in which the Hoosiers scored two touchdowns late in the game. Thanks to the shift in the percep tion of Penn State, Nebraska, which finished the 1994 season 13-0 including a 24-17 victory over Miami in the Orange Bowl, won the national title in both polls while the Nittany Lions, who also finished the season undefeated, were left out in the cold. Inconsistency hurt PSU in 1994 and it may cost them again this sea son “If a team doesn’t play like the best team every week, then it has some problems with consistency,” said Missouri Coach Larry Smith, who has spent weeks at number one while coaching at Southern California. “Just by seeing the high lights, Nebraska probably played a little more consistent against Texas Tech than Penn State did against Minnesota.” However, Penn State - just like Nebraska - can still take back the top spot. The Lions could regain some positive perception with the voters with games against No. 5 Michigan, No. 15 Michigan State and No. 22 Purdue, while the Huskers most like ly will not play a ranked opponent until the Big 12 Championship. Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne knows the No. 1 position is shaky at best. “Being number one is tenuous for us right now,” Osborne said. “We’re in a position to control our own destiny a little bit, but we have to play well every week against our opponents.” Some coaches in the Big 12 said they have quit trying to figure out the polls, for which there seems to be an exception to every rule. “I don’t know how they arrive at the decision at who goes where,” Kansas State Coach Bill Snyder said. “Sometimes they have a win-is-a win mentality, other times they don’t. I’m not privy to that knowl edge.” Some coaches, like Colorado’s Rick Neuheisel, don’t care for the current ranking system. “The polls are ridiculous,” Neuheisel said. “They don’t take into account the strength of a team’s schedule, really. I think they should be done away with.” Neuheisel says a playoff is the only answer to the current system. “That’s eventually what we need to go to,” he said. “A playoff is the best thing, in my opinion.” For Osborne, the rest of the sea son has little to do with polls or lob bying for a playoff system, but just making sure NU wins its remaining games. “It’s my job as coach to make sure we win our games, and that’s what we do,” he said. “We have never tried to go out and win games by huge margins for polls. I would hope we could do that anyway.” By Sam McKewon Staff Reporter Hampered by a leg injury earlier this sea son, senior cross country runner Cleophas Boor signaled his recovery with a third-place finish in the Wolverine Inter-Regional in Ann,’ Arbor, Mich., Sunday. Boor finished in a time of 24 minutes, 44 seconds; 32 seconds behind the top two finish ers, Michigan All-Americans Kevin Sullivan and John Mortimer, who both ran 24:12. Boor, along with freshman Jeroen Broekzitter, who finished fifth, helped pace the Husker men to a fourth-place finish overall. Nebraska Coach Jay Dirksen said Boor’s performance was reminiscent of last year, when Boor finished no lower than third all sea son, including the NCAA meet. “He looked as good as he has looked all year out there,” Dirksen said. “He seems to be at that point where he has recovered well and ^he knows he can run at the top of the pack the whole time.” The rest of the team performed as well as they have all year, according to Dirksen. Besides Broekzitter and Boor, senior Aaron Johnsbij was 28that 25:44, freshman Marcus Witter was 44th at 26:05, and junior Lou Petricca was 46th at 26:09. Dirksen said it was a team performance he was proud to watch, considering that Nebraska was not picked to place so high in the meet. “It was the best meet that all of these guys ran all year long,” Dirksen said. “The course was pretty challenging and there were some teams that had a lot of good runners and we beat a couple of those teams, so we’re very happy with fourth in Michigan.” The women’s team didn’t fare quite as well, finishing sixth overall. NU was beaten by unranked teams Missouri and James Madison, who finished fourth and fifth. Dirksen said there was a lack of consisten cy on the women’s team leading to their disap pointing finish. “They were a little off in their racing,” Dirksen said. “Everybody ran pretty average, and nobody really ran extremely well in Michigan, except for Kate Centerwall. The course took its toll on everyone.” Individually for the Huskers, freshman Amy Wiseman finished 12th with a time of 18:10. Sophomore Jamie Pauli was 18th with a time of 18:15, while senior Nora Shepherd was 23rd with a time of 18:19. Centerwall, a freshman, was 41st at 18:37, and sophomore Melinda Mohr was 53rd at 18:57. Both teams compete in the Big 12 Championships in Stillwater, Okla., in two weeks. Dirksen said he thinks facing tough competition all season will help the Huskers. “We could have went to some lesser meets and won,” Dirksen said, “but we went against better teams and in the end, we’re going to be better off. We know with all the teams that we’ve went against, we’re going to run well against any team at the Big 12.” _|g—» u ana mow prated iefie realtetRecmindMjualfeedback. Gel stategiestffltwl help you aoehisalean. Crflod^tonseraByoursMl! uiMip-iEir www.kipiin.com TcakMpa***r- " iruni) I"rBreckenridge/Ml From '189®l Trip Includes?1 • 6 day/8 night Lodging Jan 4 - 9, 1998 • 4 days of day/night skiing at Breckenridge, I Keystone, Vail, or Beaverl Creek(2 days at Val]/BC) I • Bartles. 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