kska 20, Missouri 13
MU offense frustrated
in narrow loss to NU
i By Darren Ivy
Staff writer
With one niinute and 42 seconds remaining in the
game, the scene was set for another miraculous finish
- only this time it was Missouri with the ball.
Nebraska had just fumbled, giving the Tigers the
ball on the NU 46-yard line with three timeouts
remaining.
“We were just playing to play,” MU Coach Larry
Smith said. “At the very end there, I thought it would
be ironic if we would have scored on that last play and
took it to overtime.”
It wasn’t meant to be.
With four seconds remaining in regulation, MU
quarterback Corby Jones was sacked by Eric
Johnson. Jones was sacked to end last year’s overtime
game.
“I didn’t have a prayer,” Jones said. “The guys ran
the routes they were supposed to, but there were too
many guys standing back there. 1 was just trying to
run around and find somebody open.”
The 20-13 loss didn’t set well with Tiger running
back Devin West.
“We’re angry,” said West, the nation’s second
leading rusher prior to his 77-yard performance
against NU. “We lost. If you’re a winner, you don’t
accept losing at all. That was a team we could have
beat and probably should have beat, but offensively
we lost the game.”
The nation,^ fifth leading rushing team managed
just 77 yards on the ground, 189 below its average.
MU’s 166 yards of total offense were 212 yards below
its season average.
Furthermore, the Tigers recorded just 10 first
downs - six in the first half and two in the last minute
of the game - and converted three of 14 third downs.
~ “Give Nebraska credit, they have an excellent
defense,” Smith said. “But we couldn’t get anything
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