LEFT: Correll Buckhatter
struggles to grab a pitch
on a third down play in
the third quarter. The
second-string 1-Back
rushed for 94 yards.
Steven Bender/DN
Scott McClurg/DN
T0P:Bobby Newcombe leaves
a pack of Missouri defenders
in the dust while running a
94-yard punt return for a
touchdown in the second
quarter. Newcombe's return
broke the school record for
longest punt return set by
Johnny Rodgers in 1971.
LEFT: NU students Stephanie
Borman, Kate Jensen and
Melanie Mitzel cheer during
the final minutes of
Saturday's football game at
Memorial Stadium.
Farmer has
game of life
BY BRIAN CHR1STOPHERSON
One voice started singing. And then another,
and suddenly the entire Missouri locker room was
in unison, echoing the Missouri fight song off the
visitor locker room walls.
And who was going to tell this Tiger choir to
mute their voices? *
It was halftime, and the score stood 28-14 in
Nebraska’s favor. And aside from wide receiver
Bobby Newcombe’s second quarter 94-yard punt
return jig to the south end zone, the score probably
would have been closer.
The Nebraska defense was on its heels, with
Mizzou's sophomore quarterback Kirk Farmer run
ning and gunning the Tigers up and down the field,
occasionally resorting to sandlot trickery.
“We felt like we had them. We felt like we could
play with anybody,” Farmer said. “I felt real confi- •
dent. I felt like they couldn't stop me. I was upset
with the way it ended.”
The ending for Farmer and, in all reality, the
end of the Tigers’ upset dreams, came on a 33-yard
third quarter run by Farmer down to the Nebraska
13. \
before injur
■jpThe Missouri quarterback tears up Husker
secondary before breaking his clavicle.
farmer slowly crept to the sidelines after the
play with a banged up left arm. It was later diag
nosed as a broken left clavicle that will sideline die
signal caller for at least a month.
“It’s very upsetting. It’s hard to swallow this
after things were just coming together," Farmer
said.
Farmer had to be kept from making a return
trip to the field after his injury
"He's a tough young man. If he had his way, he
would have been out there on the next play,"
Missouri Coach Larry Smith said. t
Before the injury, Farmer had done everything
but sell popcorn in the stands, throwing for a
career-high 214 yards on 13-25 passing, running
nine times for 85 yards and catching a pass for 35
yards.
“That was the best game he’s ever played here.
He is maturing into what we thought he would
become,” Smith said.
After Farmer’s injury, Mizzou could only muster
a field goal under the direction of untested fresh
man Darius Outlaw.
Outlaw had thrown only four passes and ran
four times for minus-20 yards in two games before
being forced into action against the Huskers mid
way through the third quarter.
“I was a little nervous when I first got in there,
but I knew the offense just as well as Kirk did.,"
Outlaw said.
Oudaw came into the game down two touch
downs instead of one because of Missouri running
back Zack Abron’s third quarter fumble. The fum
ble was picked up and ran 28 yards for a touch
down by NU linebacker Jamie Burrow.
“I think the big difference in that game was two
plays that Nebraska made,” Smith said. “The punt
return was definitely a big play, and I think the
fumble that they took in for the touchdown was the
difference.”
The other difference in the game Tiger players
and coaches all pointed to was Nebraska quarter
back Eric Crouch.
“I have total respect for him,” Smith said of
Crouch. “I think he’s a great football player and he’ll
take Nebraska a long, long way.”
Senior Missouri nose tackle Pat Mingucci
pointed out how Crouch pasted 283 of NU s 484
total yards of offense on the Tigers.
“He’s so fast and before you know it, he cuts into
a hole,” Mingucci said. “He's like a running back at
the quarterback position.”
So, it was turnovers, injuries and Crouch that
kept Missouri from singing all the way back to
Columbia.
However, Smith saw the game as a positive sign
for the future.
“I think we learned to fight tonight and to play
hard, and if we take that into every game this year,
we're going to win a heck of a lot of football games,”
Smith said.
Mingucci agreed, but wasn’t about to settle for a
moral victory.
“It definitely builds confidence,” Mingucci
said. “But a loss is a loss.”
Perhaps, but it is a loss that will forever sit vivid
ly in Smith's mind.
"In all my 38 years of coaching, I’ve never had a
football team that’s played as hard, fought so hard
to win a game.”