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.”
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