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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 1998)
- -• - > ■ - - d h: -i Texas tight end Derek Lewis caught UT’s first touchdown of the game Saturday. Lewis, you might remember, was on the receiving end i of the fourth down, 63-yard pass from James Brown in UT’s 37-27 upset of Nebraska in 1996. ■ With 269 yards passing Saturday, Longhorn quarterback . Major Applewhite extended his UT freshman record for consecutive games with more than 200 yards passing. The streak now stands at six. Applewhite needs two more games with more than 200 yards to surpass Peter Gardere’s record of seven, set in 1992. ■ Texas was the third team this season to hold Nebraska to fewer than 200 yards rushing for the t game. Ricky Williams was the fourth running back to rush for more than 100 yards against NU this season. His 150 yards are the most by an opposing player in Lincoln since Oklahoma State’s Barry Sanders had 189 yards against the Huskers in 1988. The highest amount ever? Curt Warner of Penn State had 238 yards against NU in 1981. ■ For the first time this season, an NU quarterback rushed for more than 100 yards. Eric Crouch com pleted the feat with 108 yards on 17 carries with a touchdown. While one might think that pace is far below the efforts of last season when Scott Frost was at quarter back, think again. By this time in the season last year, Frost had rushed for more than 100 yards in game twice. ■ Nebraska trailed at halftime Saturday, which made it two con secutive games in a row that NU has trailed at halftime. The last time that happened in two consecutive games was in the 1989 Fiesta Bowl, when NU trailed 21 -10 at halftime and the ensuing year when NU trailed 17 14 at halftime. ■ Texas has scored in 209 straight games, dating back to a 16-0 loss to Baylor in 1980. That streak is sec ond to only Brigham Young University, which has scored in 295 straight games. ■ Rover Mike Brown had a team season best 18 tackles Saturday against the Longhorns. Brown, however, also had a costly penalty on UT’s game- winning drive that >. cost Nebraska 15 yards. ■ r With the loss, Nebraska is now 16-1 on Halloween. ■ Since joining the Big 12, NU has not fared well against the schools in Texas. The Huskers have a 5-3 record against Baylor, Texas Tech, Texas and Texas A&M, com bined. Gamed ay notebook compiled by Jay Saunders and Sam MikeWarren/DN NEBRASKA QUARTERBACK Eric Crouch is gang tackled by Texas’ Cedric Woodard and several other teammates in the second quarter. The Huskers’ offense was held to fewer than 200 yards rushing for the third time this season in their second loss. Texas upsets NU, ends home streak By Sam McKewon Senior editor Call it UT magic. Call it NU misfor tune. Call it whatever you want, really. It won’t change the outcome, which was clear enough, tattooed on the scoreboard above the southwest comer of Memorial Stadium and below, on the field, where Longhorn Coach Mack Brown, atop his players’ shoulders, did a Hook’em Homs session with the UT band. It was clear enough in the Comhuskers’ interview room, too, where players , answered questions in a fog, slowly coming to terms with a season of failed promise. It was clear enough, all right. Texas beat Nebraska - again. And much like the 1996 Big 12 Championship game, when the Longhorns wrecked NU’s chance at a national title with an upset, the Longhorns made the big plays Saturday, while the Comhuskers misfired in critical situations. It added up to a 20-16 Texas win in front of 76,434 stunned, quiet fans at Memorial Stadium. Understandably so, as they hadn’t seen NU lose at home since 1991. With the loss, gone was the 47-game home winning streak. Gone were the seven straight seasons of less than two conference losses. And gone were any realistic hopes for a fourth NU national title in the 1990s. About the only thing that stuck around Saturday night for No. 7 Nebraska’s players was the feeling that they had seen this kind of game before from unranked Texas. “It’s kind of like, almost, deja vu,” NU linebacker Jay Foreman said. “It’s just the same thing that happened last time in 1996. They got a lot of big calls going their way, and they made a lot of big plays when they needed to. You’ve got to hand it to them.” In a way, the Huskers almost did. Nebraska (7-2 overall and 3-2 in the Big 12 Conference) let several key chances slip by in the second half while UT (6-2 and 44) made good on them. A tight-lipped, disappointed Frank Solich was clear afterward about where NU went wrong - and where the Longhorns went right. “It was a ballgame where both teams certainly had chances,” die NU Coach said “They made more of their opportunities than what we did. We did not get enough points on the board when we had opportu nities. That was the ballgame.” Solich pointed to a key moment in the third quarter, when NU led 13-10 and had the ball at the UT 12-yard line, as a time when Nebraska failed to execute. The Huskers had turned a 10-3 halftime deficit into a 13-10 lead by way of an Eric Crouch 37-yard run and a Kris Brown 47 yard field goal, and were looking for more after an interception of UT quarterback Major Applewhite. But then quarterback Crouch fumbled on third down. Texas recovered. Four plays later, Applewhite found UT receiver Bryan White wide open in the Husker secondary for a 76-yard gain to set up the game-tying field goal. “That tumble on the goal line was cost ly,” said Crouch, who led all NU rushers with 108 yards in replacing starter Monte Christo midway through the second quar ter. Crouch did lead the Huskers to a field goal in the fourth quarter to put NU back ahead 16-13 with eight minutes and 33 sec onds remaining in the game. When Texas got the ball back, it started its drive toward victory. After Applewhite was sacked by NU weakside linebacker Eric Johnson, UT was faced with a third down and 21 from its own 35-yard line. Again, Applewhite found White, this time for 37 yards, to the NU 28-yard line. It was the second big play of the second half for the duo, and Applewhite finished the game completing 14 of 26 passes for 269 yards and two touchdowns. “Applewhite was really poised back there,” Johnson said. “He was very com posed for being a freshman.” For the NU secondary, the two plays symbolized a day of big wins and bigger losses. Despite several good plays, the Huskers were flagged with one critical pass interfer ence penalty that set up UT’s first touch down, a 16-yard pass from Applewhite to tight end Derek Lewis. Texas was able to keep pressure off its Heisman candidate, running back Ricky Williams, who rushed for 150 yards on 37 carries but was kept out of the end zone - with an effective short-range passing game. “Our defense was off and on all day long,” Defensive Coordinator Charlie McBride said. “On one play, they’d look great. On the nod, awful.” Nebraska would receive one more cost ly penalty on the drive, a 15-yard face masking penalty on NUrover NHke Brown, a penalty Brown said he didn’t commit. It Please see UPSET on 11 Scott McClurg/DN ■ mnununn nunmmi unun nibRf wvniiamo uuiiuiio ndDraska’s Carlos Polk in ■ the first quarter. Williams finished with 150 yards on 34 carries. Football game review “a » Nebraska Texas Rushing Jjg Rushing S£* Name Car Yds Avg TD Name Car Yds Avg TD Eric Crouch 17 129 6.4 1 Ricky Williams 37 157 4.1 0 Darell Alexander 8 66 7.5 0 Richard Walton 1 0 -2.0 0 Correll Buckhalter 8 23 2.3 0 Major Applewhite 5 3 -3.8 0 Receiving Receiving Name Rec Yds Long TD Name Rec Yds Long TD * Shevin Wiggins 4 59 36 0 Wane McGarity 5 51 14 1 Sheldon Jackson 3 26 13 0 Kwame Cavil 4 70 37 0 Correll Buckhalter 1 15 15 0 Bryan White 2 113 76 0 Passing Pessbrn Name Comp Att Yds TD Name Comp Att Yds TD Eric Crouch 6 13 59 0 Major Applewhite 14 26 269 2 Monte Christo 4 4 58 0 Ricky Williams 0 10 0 Game Stats **»*» Tans Mrasia Tans First downs 18 19 Fumbles lost 1 0 Rushing attempts 47 43 Interceptions 1 0 Rushing yards 194 129 Penalties / yards 5 / 45 9 / 88 Passing completions 10 14 Punt returns / yards 5 / 239 6/198 Passing attempts 17 27 Kickoff returns/yards 4/54 4/81 J Passing yards 117 269 Time of possession 28:56 31:04 Totalyaids 311 398 Sacks/yards 3/22 4/29 13 hu l*fm ----