FOX News

Monday, October 27, 2008

Nebraska has a solid game against Baylor.


Nebraska played a tough team in Baylor this past week. Nebraska did not give up when adversity hit them and rebounded to win 32-20. Next year in Baylor will be no gimmee with their quarterback.

Oklahoma is this week. They will score a lot. Nebraska will score a lot. Look to Oklahoma to score more and win 38-20. What a tradition this game USED to be. It was something we looked forward to for weeks!

Today we are going to talk about that Thanksgiving Day when we played the Game of the Century vs. Oklahoma.

It was No. 1 Nebraska vs. No. 2 Oklahoma in front of 63,000 fans at Owens Field. Never has the quality of a game been so strong. Yes, there has been buildup of many games over the years. This game, however, featured two teams that performed brilliantly all day long. The errors of the game included three turnovers by Oklahoma and one by Nebraska. There was only one penalty the whole day, an offside penalty against Nebraska.

Oklahoma ran the record breaking Wishbone T. Nebraska was able to stop the main weapon of Greg Pruitt's end runs but was not able to stop the keeper, fullback, or most of the passing game.

Nebraska ran the I spread and the I slot. Oklahoma took away Nebraska's passing attack but Nebraska was able to the run the ball effectively. The difference in the game is the play all Nebraska fans remember. It was Johnny Rodger's punt return. It was the play we have heard called by Lyle Bremser a billion times and it is never enough. That play was the difference in the game that day.

Joe Wylie punted the ball high and deep which helped Rodgers' return. Oklahoma was down to him when he caught the ball. You can't describe the run. You have all seen it. Rodgers went 72 yards for the score!! He should have called a fair catch the way they had him covered. Greg Pruitt spun him around. Ken Jones almost had him. He darted, caught his balance, twisted, dodged, disappeared a couple of times and then ran for the end zone. Joe Blahak bumped Joe Wylie out of the way. He put the fans in the aisles. Man, woman, and child!!!

The Cornhuskers twice were able to get 11 point leads that day; 14-3 in the second quarter and 28-17 in the third quarter. Remember the punt return was in the first 3 1/2 minutes of the ballgame. But the punt return forced OU to fight from behind most of the day.

With seven minutes to go in the game, OU's QB Jack Mildren had ran for two touchdowns and passed for two more. Nebraska had the best defense in the country but Oklahoma had 467 total yards. Oklahoma also had a 31-28 lead. It was reported that Devaney lost his temper and yelled at the defense on the sideline "Why can't you guys give Rich Glover some help once in a while?" Rich Glover seemed to be doing it all that day.

Then is was NU's Jerry Tagge's turn to direct NU on the winning 74 yard drive. "Nobody said a word in the huddle but me," Tagge said. "We all just knew what had to be done." And they did it.
The drive took 12 plays and over five minutes. Jeff Kinney ran for 30 yards on two plays early in the drive. He broke a few tackles. Do you remember his torn up jersey? Tagge hit Rodgers on a third and eight with Rodgers making a great catch.

Jeff Kinney ran the ball into the end zone with little time left running behind All American Daryl White. Nebraska won 35-31 and we all felt great for hours, days, months, and years to come.

Let's hope this Saturday we get a big upset and the victory gives us some of that feeling again!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice job of retelling the highlights of that game! I really felt like I was watching it. Nebraska and OU have sure had some showdowns. I hope that this week will be another one. Watch out for those first few minutes of the game. Oklahoma runs a hurry up, no huddle, and they run it fast and hard, especially the first few minutes.