Welcome to installment No. 19 of ‘The Cob’s Archive Dive’, where each week, I’ll share headlines and excerpts from past articles printed in the Falls City Journal. Hopefully you’ll find a piece of Husker football history that makes you feel the sights and sounds of gameday.
On this day in Cornhusker Football History:
November 17, 1970 – Headline: ‘Texas, Huskers Climb in AP Poll’
Nebraska 9-0-1 moved up one notch after pounding Kansas State 51-13. Top 10 – 1. Texas, 2. Notre Dame, 3. Nebraska, 4. Michigan, 5. Ohio State, 6. Arkansas, 7. LSU, 8. Tennessee, 9. Arizona State, 10. Air Force
(Notable coaches in the 1970 poll, Texas-Darrell Royal, Notre Dame-Ara Parseghian, Nebraska-Bob Devaney, Michigan-Bo Schembechler, Ohio State-Woody Hayes, Arkansas-Frank Broyles, Arizona State-Frank Kush.)
November 13, 1980 – Headline: ISU to See ‘The One Who Got Away’
Saturday marks the day post-season bowl invitations may be handed out but Nebraska coach Tom Osborne is trying to keep the minds of the fourth-rated Huskers on Big Eight Conference foe Iowa State. Nebraska’s defense will face powerful junior tailback Dewayne Crutchfield and somewhere along the way, Iowa State will be seeing ‘the one who got away’ in the person of third-string sophomore I-back Roger Craig of Nebraska. Craig, one of the nation’s highly recruited prep players, is a Davenport, Iowa native. Osborne said Craig could develop into the finest runner ever to put on a Big Red uniform. In addition to his average of 9.3 points per game, Craig is averaging 78 yards rushing per outing as a third sting player. Now Craig will be given a chance to show his talents to Iowa State and the Iowa fans. Those talents prompted one sports scribe to comment last week, “I can see the headlines now, ‘Third string I-back wins Heisman.’”
(At the time I wrote this article Nebraska was working on their 2027 recruiting class. They just had offensive lineman Barrett Kittrell on campus for an official visit. He’s narrowed it down to either Nebraska or Iowa. The surprise here, Kittrell is a legacy player. Battles between neighboring states is common but as in the case of Roger Craig, and later Grant Brix, and Will Hawthorne, Nebraska and Iowa often go at it on and off the field.)
October22, 1990 – Headline: Osborne Wary of Iowa State
Iowa State (3-3-1) spilled No. 16 Oklahoma 33-31 in Norman, Oklahoma Saturday. “Iowa State is a great offensive team – a very, very potent team,” Osborne said. Iowa State is the only team other than Penn State (1981-82) and Oklahoma (several times) to own back-to-back regular season wins over Osborne in his 18 seasons at Nebraska.
Nebraska has won everything this season except the respect of poll voters. The 7-0 Cornhuskers, who have yet to play a ranked team, ranked fourth in this week’s Associated Press Top 25. Lack of national television exposure and Nebraska’s perceived weak schedule may be hurting the Cornhuskers Osborne says. Osborne said he found out Tuesday that he is the only Top 20 coach who doesn’t have his team tied to national sports cable network ESPN for game highlights. “I didn’t know it,” Osborne said. “So, a lot of people around the country haven’t seen anything of Nebraska, other than the Baylor game. We are trying to rectify that if we can.”
Osborne isn’t overly concerned about the schedule. “Before it’s over, we will have played some pretty good teams and if we haven’t measured up, we haven’t measured up.” One of those measurements will come on Saturday against Iowa State in Ames.
(While Osborne may have not been wrong about garnering respect, the pollsters weren’t wrong either. The 1990 Husker team wasn’t as good as their record or scores indicated. And it was this team that caused Osborne to rethink his defense and go in a new direction.)
November 4, 2000 – Headline: Nebraska Rebounds from Loss, Throttles Kansas
To best gauge the feel of Kansas’ game against Nebraska Saturday, consider this. Nebraska never even had to punt. Yes, it was that ugly — and the last thing the Jayhawks needed. Kansas didn’t do anything to help its bowl chances Saturday. And it didn’t do anything to help its morale, either. Nebraska manhandled the Jayhawks in every way possible in route to a 56-17 victory. The Cornhuskers had 562 offensive yards to Kansas’s 266. Their defense stopped the Jayhawks behind the line of scrimmage 10 times, and their offense tallied 493 rushing yards against a Kansas unit that was surrendering just 97.6 ground yards a game against Big 12 foes. KU was basically inept against a Cornhuskers squad that was extra-feisty after suffering its first loss of the season last week to Oklahoma. Aided by an offensive line that features all-Big 12 candidates Dominic Raiola and Toniu Fonoti, the Huskers had three players rush for at least 100 yards — Crouch (127), Alexander (119) and Correll Buckhalter (100). Nebraska threw just seven passes in 80 plays. Saturday marked just the second time in NU history that three rushers have reached 100 yards in the same game. Crouch, Alexander and Buckhalter also make this Nebraska team the only squad in NCAA history to feature three 2,000-yard career rushers in the same backfield.
(For all the talent the 2000 squad had, this game shows how one-dimensional they really were. If you could stop the run, as Oklahoma did, you could beat the Huskers.)
Be sure to look for next week’s edition as the ‘Cob’ dives into each week’s headlines as they once appeared in the Falls City Journal.
GO BIG RED!! SIMPLE, FAST VIOLENT!!
All headlines and excerpts were gathered from Associated Press articles, and most but not all were published in the Falls City Journal. Home – Falls City Journal – Falls City, NE
Photographs were gathered from multiple sources.
Leave a Reply