SPORTS/Deaths, 18/Comics, 21 TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1989 LINCOLN, I NE. JOURNAL 13 Survivors battered in wake of Hurricane OR G Quick, easy for Miami; long, painful for NU Quick, quick, quick. Enough said MIAMI - Bob Devaney shook his head as he waited for an elevator at halftime of Monday night's 55th Orange Bowl football game. "Quick," said the Nebraska athletic director. "I didn't think we were slow, but they're quick." They were the Miami Hurricanes, specifically, those who played defense in a 23-3 victory over Nebraska. They were quick, indeed. On the final play of the first quarter, for example, Cornhusker I-back Ken Clark tried to get outside and was buried for a 1-yard loss, beneath the entire Miami defense, all 11 players. Nebraska quarterback Steve Taylor, for example, was chased from sideline to sideline and tackled for no gain by 6-foot-4, 261-pound Hurricane defensive tackle Jimmie Jones. Or late in the second quarter, for example, on a third-and-1 from the quarterback Steve Walsh fades on this third-quarter play was 21 of 44 passes for 277 yards back to pass as center Bobby intercepted by Nebraska's Charles and two touchdowns. Mike Babcock Columnist Cornhusker 28-yard line, Clark was dropped for a 3-yard loss on a play designed to go up the middle, Nebraska, which ranked No. I in rushing offense going into the game, managed only 80 yards on 38 attempts against Miami. Taylor was sacked six times for 36 yards in losses. The Cornhuskers, who scored only seven points in each of their last two regular -season games, managed just three against the Hurricanes. Nebraska linemen MIAMI - Steve Taylor 1 never had a chance in the Orange Bowl. "We didn't give him a good shot," Nebraska offensive guard Andy Keeler said after Monday night's 23-3 loss to secondranked Miami. "I'm going to take a lot of the blame for that, and I think some of the other linemen are, too." Tackle Bob Sledge, for one. Taylor was sacked six times for 36 yards in losses, and Sledge assumed personal responsibility for at least two of By Mike Babcock Journal Sports Writer those sacks. "On one of them, I take the most responsibility," Sledge said. "I was gambling and it didn't work." Very little did for a Nebraska offense that went into game averaging a nation-leading 382.3 yards rushing per game. The Cornhuskers managed only 80 rushing yards against. Miami, and 135 total yards. "We definitely had the most trouble we've had in a while," said guard John Nelson, who was at a loss to explain exactly why that was so. "We wanted to play better. It just By Ken Hambleton Journal Writer Sports MIAMI - The survivors were able talk about the disaster, but it didn't diminish the pain and shock. "That was one of the worst beatings we've taken," Nebraska Coach Tom borne said after Miami crushed Cornhuskers 23-3 Monday night in Orange Bowl. "It's hard to explain," he said. Nebraska quarterback Steve Taylor found a quick and easy description what happened. "For the first time I remember were physically beaten," he said. "Their defense was tremendous and tremendously quick and we didn't get things going." Huskers shut down One reason for that was there was nowhere to go that wasn't blocked by the Miami defense. The Hurricanes held the Cornhuskers to 11 yards on 11 plays in the first quarter and gave up only 124 yards the rest of the game to the best rushing team in the country. Only a 50-yard field goal by Nebraska's Gregg Barrios could find its way to the endzone, while Miami counted on a pair of touchdown passes from Steve Walsh to Leonard Conley and three field goals by Carlos Huerta. "Our basic stuff wasn't there," Osborne said. "They made it hard on Steve (Taylor) because they took away the run and their pass rush was very good. "We led the nation in rushing and we had been averaging seven yards a rush so we don't get the ball in the air that often. But we ended up calling passes on at least half of all our plays," he said. The problem was the Miami defense didn't falter in pass defense either. Miami sacked Taylor six times, intercepted three NU passes, broke up two others and stopped three completions before they crossed the line of scrimmage. Long-yardage situations "Nothing seems to work too well when you're facing second down and 10 and third down and 11," Osborne said. "If the score had been 7-0 at the half instead of 20-0, we might have tried to run more. But it's hard to ram away when you're down by 20 points." Miami, a solid No. 2 in the nation behind Notre Dame, counted first on a 22- yard pass from Walsh to Conley when Nebraska defenders were caught out of position. offensive up and stuffed it pretty good. There didn't seem to be anything we could do about it," said Sledge. As a result, "we kind of got out of our game plan," Keeler said. "The key is to execute, and we didn't. I can't think of three plays in a row that we did everything right," said Young. "We never really got anything going." Even though Miami established its dominance early, the Cornhuskers still thought they could come back. "When we went in (at halftime), I thought we could win," said Keeler. "You get beat on a couple of plays and Orange Bowl at a glance Quote of the game 'For the first time I remember we were physically beaten their defense was tremendous and tremendously quick and we didn 'freet things going.' - Steve Taylor Scorins. team stats Miami 3-23 Nebraska 00303 to Osthe the of we Miami• Conley 22 pass from Walsh (Huerta kick) Miami - = FG -Conley Huerta a 18 - 42 pass from Walsh (Huerta kick) Miami - - - - - PG Huerta 37 NU - FG Barries 50 Miami - FG Huerta 37 A -79,400 Miami First downs Passing yards Total yards Return yards Passing 23-48-3 8-22-3 Punts 4-39.5 9-37.2 Fumbles-lost Penalties-yards 7-40 Time of possession 30:16 Third-down Fourth-down conversions conversion 8-18 0-0 1-14 I The Orange Bowl in words and pictures. Pages 16-17. Miami pass pleted Garcia (right) blocks Nebraska nose Fryar, one of three interceptions That's defensive quickness. During the final pre game news conference, Miami Coach Jimmy Johnson claimed his defense looked quicker than it actually was because of the way it lined up. He said it was the leverage, the angles. But Nebraska wasn't beaten by perceptions. The Hurricanes were quick, and fast. They came from every direction, or so it seemed. The Cornhuskers expected Miami to be quick. But "they were a lot quicker than I thought they would be," said Nebraska offensive guard John Nelson, whose job it was to block the hardcharging Hurricanes. "They were really quick," which helps explain how Monday night's game got quickly out of hand. Say what you want. Miami had control by halftime, if not sooner. On this particular night, at least, the Hurricanes accept wasn't working well for us," he said. Keeler was more expressive. "We stunk the place up," said the senior co-captain Omaha. "Hey, we got our butts kicked." Center Jake Young would have described it in a different way but chose not to use the necessary language. "There's no other word than a fourletter word to describe the way we played," said the junior All -American. "This is tough." Miami's defense didn't do anything unexpected, according to Keeler. The Hurricanes just did more. TED KIRK/LINCOLN JOURNAL guard Lawrence Pete. Walsh's Walsh suffered. But Walsh com- were clearly superior. The game could have been played in Lincoln and Miami would have won. Home field advantage had nothing to do with the outcome. If the second-ranked Hurricanes had a letdown after learning that top ranked Notre Dame had defeated West Virginia decisively in the Fiesta Bowl to assure itself of the national championship, they, didn't let it show. And if they did have a letdown, well, suffice it to say, Nebraska ought to count its blessings. Things could have gotten really ugly. As it was, "we're embarrassed," said Andy Keeler, the Cornhuskers' other starting guard on offense and a team captain. "You don't like to have your fans come all that way for this." Those who stayed home must have See BABCOCK on page 17 blame for "They slanted and looped a lot more than we thought they would. We expected them to do it, but not that intense. When they came, they came hard," Keeler said. Sledge, also a senior, agreed. "We knew what they were going to run. But they varied it a lot," he said. "They shut us down. We tried to do things and they just didn't work." The pitch, a staple of Nebraska's running attack, certainly didn't work, according to Keeler. "I think we ran only three," he said. "Their defensive backs came flying The Hurricanes added a field goal after an interception and tacked on a 42- yard touchdown pass to Conley, when he broke away from NU cornerback Lorenzo Hicks at the Nebrasica 35-yard line. A blocked punt led to Miami's final score of the first half. The few times Nebraska had the ball in the first half netted 29 yards and a pair of first downs - one of those on penalties. The frustration was heaped on the Cornhuskers in the second quarter. Called back Nebraska had a 40-yard pass from Taylor to Morgan Gregory negated when Taylor stepped over the scrimmage and when a 20-yard quarterback draw was called back by a clipping penalty. There wasn't much change after halftime either - Miami's blitzing defense made sure of that. "We didn't get a chance to talk to Steve (Taylor) because he was being treated by the trainers for a thigh bruise and we were frustrated in figuring out what we could change," Osborne said. Nebraska squeaked out seven yards on the first 11 plays of the third quarter and except for a 34-yard pass to Richard Bell and a 12-yard scramble by Taylor, See NU on page 16 collapse it gets awful frustrating," Nelson said. "But we thought things would switch. They never did." Young held out hope until the bitter end. "We always felt we had a chance. We felt that all the way. We still felt it with a couple of minutes left in the game," he said. Nebraska rarely has experienced such offensive frustration during Keeler's career. Any loss is hard to take, he said, "but when you're down like that, and they're dragging it out, it hurts." "This was the toughest loss we've ever had," said Young.
