The good, bad and boring AMES, IA. - For Iowa State, it was the kind of game that, when the offense takes the field, the defense yells, "Try to hold "em this time." Sure it's an old Joke, but what did you expect, Bob Hope? The game wasn't a lot of laughs, either, if you want to know the truth. ' Afterward, Jim Criner, the Cyclone coach who saw Nebraska ax-murder bis team, 44-0, looked like a politician delivering a concession speech. Only not so cheery. "The players will be right in," he whispered after a brief analysis of the landslide. "Thank you." You could hardly hear him, which was appropriate because, earlier in the day, you could hardly hear his offense. 'Actually, it was a chicken-before-the-egg question. Was the Iowa State offense that bad (as in bad ) or was the Nebraska defense that bad (as in good D)? Probably both. Some coaches feel the 1984 Huskers are better than the '83 Huskers, who were rated No. 1 most of the season. 'CRINER IS ONE. He seems to believe that a cold-hearted defense is preferable -to a hot-wheels offense if forced to decided between the two. . Then again, there are people like Pat Jones, the new coach at Oklahoma State. Early in the season he wasn't convinced the Big Eight had a powerhouse. "There's a lot of football to be played in this conference," he said after the Cowboys lost to Nebraska in their Big Eight opener. "I don't think anyone is immune to problems on any weekend. It's going to be wild before the year ends. Nobody is going to go through this league unbeaten." He got the wild part right, anyway. Had he been in Ames Saturday, however, Jones might have retracted the rfcst of that statement. Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne, that old chatterbox, can't say enough about his defense. Those were his exact w,ords a week ago. ?"I can't say enough about my defense," he said. "We're playing most of the same guys as last year, but they have a different attitude. They're more aggressive. If we'd had this kind of a defense last year, it would have been lights out" 'IT WASNT EXACTLY a black-out Saturday. On defense, the Huskers had nothing but arms up their sleeves. Their defense was basic black. And blue. '.This time out, Osborne thought up a few more things to say. To wit: X'That was one of the finest efforts sfrjee I've been coaching." 'And he didn't even cook up anything special for Tracy Henderson, the Big Eight's all-time leading receiver. They didn't need to, went the explana- i One piece of Iowa State's offensive strategy was to use Henderson as a de-cfi. Send him deep, and let him take a hfcndf ul of defenders along for the ride. The idea was to create openings elsewhere, into which Henderson's teammates would flow. Trouble was, the Huskers ruined it aO by assigning only one player to shadow him. t"We ran basic coverages," said. Brett Clark, a Nebraska safety. "We dijin't need to do anything else because they didn't try to hit him as much as they usually do. That surprised us." H MORE SURPRISING was what happened when a ball actually came Henderson's way. He dropped It Exclamation point jTo be honest he had to jump for the bill. Still, it slipped through his hands, which is almost like Walter Payton missing a game or Greg Louganis slacking the water belly first or Mary Lou Retton forgetting to smile. ,"I never dropped a pass like that before," said Henderson, after catching only two for the day. "It was frustrating. No excuse for that." iMaybe the excuse for the Iowa State offense was Alex Espinoza's broken heel bone. Had he not been laid out last Saturday at Missouri, Espinoza would have been the starting quarterback, and not Alan Hood. It's probably just as well he wasn't out there. Hard to complete a lot of passes with your nose in the Astro-Turf. On the other hand, you know your offense is taking the day off when your tight end and quarterback show up on the tackle chart Pave Smoldt a senior from Grundy t HANSEN Please turn to Page 4D