ORANGE BOWL TUESDAY, JANUARY 3, 1989 LINCOLN, NE. JOURNAL Miami beating hurts NU's Taylor inside and out By Mike Babcock Journal Sports Writer MIAMI - Steve Taylor has taken some beatings during his career as a quarterback at Nebraska. But the one he took in Monday night's 23-3 loss to Miami in the 55th Orange Bowl ( Classic "was probably the worst I've taken," he said. Taylor, who had been sacked six times, was hurting as he spoke to reporters after the game. With less than a minute remaining in the first half Monday night, Taylor suffered a deep thigh bruise that bothered him for the remainder of the game. But "I never give up," he said. "I always do the best I can so I can walk away and say I gave my all. I play so I'll have no regrets." Taylor had no regrets Monday night. But he was disap- pointed. "Coach Wannstedt told us what Steve Taylor had said," ac- back. But I said, "They aren't going to put me out of the ball"We just didn't get very much done offensively," he said. cording. to cornerback Bubba McDowell. "Taylor said we game,' " Taylor said. That's an understatement, actually. The Cornhuskers got were just ordinary. Imagine that. Ordinary." The Hurricanes made an effort, according to defensive end nothing done. Nebraska was last held to three points in the Yes, imagine that. Wannstedt apparently did because no Greg Mark. "Earlier in the week, Taylor said no one could 1978 opener, a 20-3 loss to Alabama in Birmingham. one else remembered Taylor saying anything like that lead- hurt him," said Mark. "We tried to do that. We did do that." The Cornhuskers couldn't establish a passing attack and ing up to the game. That's open for debate. they couldn't establish the run. In any case, Taylor's words, whether real or imagined, The senior from Fresno, Calif., probably could have come *At times we've been stopped, but never for four quarters," "made us mad," said McDowell. And "we're not nice when out of the game. A lesser individual might have, according to said Taylor. thought we'd be able to run our options, but we're mad." Jerry Weber, Nebraska's assistant trainer and physical thera: they (the Hurricanes) were quick. They filled the holes. Nebraska played well defensively, according to Taylor. pist. "Steve's going to be sore tomorrow, really sore," said "I thought we could match up with them. They didn't do "The defense kept us in the game," he said. "They did a Weber. anything we didn't expect. But they put it on us. This was the great job of keeping us in it. But we knew we couldn't score "I hope he's able to walk." first time we've really been beaten physically." seven points (or three points) and win the game. Taylor admitted the Hurricanes got to him pretty good. Miami's physical superiority Monday apparently was "We had a few good plays. Late in the game, I thought we However, "I've taken harder hits," he said. heightened by something Dave Wannstedt, the Hurricanes' were able to move the ball some." Just not as many or as often. defensive coordinator, told his players in a meeting Sunday By then, however, the game had been decided. The only One thing was certain. "That's the most I've ever been. night. thing left was pride. "It was a difficult night to play quarter- sacked," Taylor said. There's strength in Miami numbers Journal Sports Writer MIAMI - Miami's Steve Walsh wasn't the most talented quarterback Nebras ka's Charles Fryar had seen. The Miami receivers weren't the best he's played against. The Hurricane 1 running backs weren't top drawer either, Fryar said. By Ken Hambleton "But the whole package, the whole offense, was pretty darn 1 good," said the senior cornerback, who was named the Cornhuskers' Most Valuable Player in the 55th Orange Bowl Classic Monday night. "I didn't think Charles Fryar any of their receivers were as good as Hart Lee Dykes of Oklahoma State," he said. "But they got the tight end open, and they got the backs open and the wide guys open on the underneath passes. Charles Fryar He's a smart one "I thought we've seen a lot of better quarterbacks who were better physically. But this was the smartest of any we've played against." The Nebraska pass coverage wasn't as bad as it appeared, Fryar said. The Cornhuskers gave up 285 yards passing. "We were out there a long time, and they were pressing the corners and the underneath coverage almost every play," he said. Fryar intercepted two passes and teammate Tahaun Lewis intercepted another, which set up Nebraska's only score, a 50-yard field goal by Gregg Barrios. "We should have had a couple more (interceptions)," Fryar said. "I dropped one early in the game, and that got me pumped up to take an extra step to get to the ones I got to. "It would have helped our offense if we had gotten them some more chances." Nebraska defensive backs coach George Darlington echoed Fryar's statement. "If we had two or three more big plays on defense, it could have helped a lot," he said. "They passed for a couple of touchdowns. One was a missed assignment, and the other was a missed tackle. "But you can't allow those because no matter what anybody says, the strength of the Miami team is their defense, and we needed to help our offense more. "To beat Miami, we needed to be as good as they were, and we were just not quite as good." Nebraska's defense held its own against Miami's running game, allowing just 69 yards rushing, But that was more Orange Bowl gets sponsor MIAMI (AP) - An agreement for Federal Express to become the Orange Bowl's title sponsor beginning next season was announced during Monday game b between Miami and Nebraska. Under the contract, the Memphisbased international courier will receive publicity rights to the bowl's name and will advertise in its annual nationally televised game. Details of the agreement weren't immediately disclosed. The Miami Herald reported last month that Federal Express was considering a four $10 million contract with the Orange Bowl Committee to become the 55-year-old game's first title sponsor. The committee began the search for a sponsor 11 months ago after rival bowls began attracting top teams with increased payouts funded by corporate backers. Apart from the Rose Bowl, which remains independent by virtue of vastly greater television rights fees, the Orange Bowl is the last major bowl to acquire a title sponsor. NBC, which has televised the Orange Bowl for two decades, complained last year that it could not continue to pay spiraling rights fees to keep the Orange Bowl competitive. This year's fee was nearly $ $5 million. NBC announced the agreement with Federal Express during Monday night's telecast. than enough to set up the passing, Nebraska safety Reggie Cooper said. "We caught them pretty good on the runs, but as soon as we did they'd get that pass off to the tight end for the first down," he said. "Twenty-three points is not a lot to give up, but we could have and should have held them without the two touchdowns. Failure "That's where we failed on defense. Walsh read almost every blitz we tried, and he got enough of the big first downs to keep their drives alive. I could see the frustration on the faces of our guys, and it was tough to take." Fryar said it shouldn't be too hard to recover from the loss to Miami. "We got to the bowl game and we tried our best and we didn't win. You take the good with the bad, and you look forward to the future," he said. "This will be a good team next year. "We've got a good defensive scheme, and we'll get some points with some adjustments on offense." S 04 After the game, Nebraska's Broderick Thomas finds time to smile and shake the hand of Hurricane standout quarterback Steve Walsh. NBC Orange Bowl coverage interesting, concise By Michael Larsen Journal Sports Writer Unfortunately for Nebraska football fans, NBC's coverage of the Orange Bowl remained interesting longer than the game did. With Miami jumping to a 20-0 halftime lead Monday en route to a 23-3 victory over the Cornhuskers, the excitement found in a close game was lost. Instead, viewers who tuned in to cheer the Huskers had to be content with solid announcing by Don Criqui and Bob Trumpy along with some excellent camerawork. Some of the specifics: Camerawork. The NBC crews stuck to the standard angles on live action, saving u unusual views for replays. The cameras also stayed with the ball at the conclusion of most plays, allowing for some nice shots page 13 From NU- the Cornhuskers were held to minus-one yards of total offense until the final seven minutes of the game. "We needed a couple of big plays to get us back in the game and we never got them," Osborne said. "I take responsibility for that because my job as offensive coordinator is to get the ball into the endzone. "But our blocking wasn't there, we didn't, find people when we needed to and we didn't pick up Miami's blitzes," he said. "If I had it to do over again, we might have run more fullback plays - quick hitters to offset Miami's quickness and Plugged in on Sports that included Nebraska quarterback. Steve Taylor slamming the ball down after a sack and Husker cornerback Charles Fryar celebrating after an interception. Replays. It is perhaps a given that a televised football game is much more likely to suffer from an excess of replays than from a deficit. Monday's game was no exception, but the replays (two or more on numerous plays) almost always offered fresh angles as opposed to reruns of the same footage. ability on defense." Osborne said there will be evaluation of the Nebraska offense that produced 17 points in its final three games of the season. "We've led the nation in offense over the last 15 years and we're not going to panic and throw the baby out with the bathwater. "But we're willing to pursue what we need to do to win and we're willing to make some changes," he said. As for Miami, in finishing what Coach Jimmy Johnson said was a year of transition, Osborne doesn't expect many changes. Sideline interviews. Another area where excess is often a flaw. In this case, Jim Gray's interviews were infrequent enough and short enough that they did not distract. And, with rare exceptions (did anyone really want Olympic diver Wendy Williams' thoughts on the game?), the interviews were interesting, from ex-Hurricane Mike Irvin to ex-Husker Neil Smith to Miami quarterback Steve Walsh's father to the replay official from Saturday's fog shrouded NFL playoff game in Chicago. Time and situation references. One of the fundamentals of football broadcasting should be, but too often is not, frequent mention of how much time remains, what down it is and how many yards are needed for a first down. Criqui consistently wove that information into "I don't know how the polls will come out, but they were the best team we've played this year and they had the best defense we've seen in a couple of years," Osborne said. "They started well and finished well and they did what they do best. We didn't play up to that level." Miami's defense made the argument convincing, holding the Cornhuskers to 2.3 yards per play and without a touchdown for the first time since a 20-3 loss to Alabama in the season opener of the 1978 season. Nebraska was held to the lowest total rushing yardage in a bowl game, since a Miami's Steve Walsh gets away pass as Nebraska's Kent Wells (91) applies pressure. his play-by-play. When he didn't mention it, the information was often displayed on the screen. Other games. The Sugar Bowl was the only other game in progress while the Orange Bowl was going on. Although NBC never mentioned the fact that viewers could see that game on another network (no surprise), it provided frequent score updates. Pronounciations. It is inevitable that some time in the course of a game some announcer will say someone's name wrong. The worst offenses were some confusion over whether NU linebacker Mike Croel's last name had one or two syllables and one reference to Husker cornerback Lorenzo Hicks as "Leonard Hicks." On the plus side, Nebraska linebacker loss to Stanford in the 1941 Rose Bowl - 27 bowls ago for the Cornhuskers. The other impressive Miami defensive statistics included holding Nebraska to a season low first downs (10), rushing yards (80), and total offense (135). "We got beat by a better team. Our big problem was that we couldn't generate enough offense to keep the pressure off our defense," Osborne said. "Yes, I felt a lot of frustration on the sidelines. We would find something that would work a little bit but we couldn't find anything that would work consistently. "Defensively, we probably played well enough to win the game, but the break- Leroy Etienne had his hard-to-say name pronounced correctly all night. Subjective reporting. Used in moderation, the opinions of the men in the broadcast booth can be of. value. When Miami Coach Jimmy John.. son fumed on the sidelines late in the game, Criqui and Trumpy at first just talked about the poor image Johnson often projects. When Johnson's antics continued and Miami drove for more points despite its comfortable lead, Trumpy y criticized the coach, saying; "This is unhealthy. It's not right. This off. fends a good many people." Criqui and Trumpy also raised the question of whether Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne would shake Johnson's hand after the game (he did), at least. giving viewers some reason to stay: tuned until the end. downs in our running game and our lack. of passing success left a lot of responsi: bility in the hands of the offense," he said. As for the future of the Cornhuskers, Osborne said there is promise. "We finished 11-2 this year. We beat Oklahoma and won the Big Eight championship and the cupboard isn't bare," he said. "We've got a good start at recruit-* ing and we've rebounded from a loss be-: fore. "We've got to build the best team Wen can. A team that can beat the best team. in the nation because that's who we saw in the Orange Bowl," he said. Lincoln Journal photos by: Ian Doremus, Randy Hampton, Ted Kirk JACKSON L 4 Nebraska's Charles Fryar (10) intercepts a Steve Walsh pass that was intended for Miami's Rob Chudzinski. NU's Tim Jackson (4) moves in behind Chudzinski.
