The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 29

H1SIDE SECTION CopvrigM r85, Qes Motnes Register and Trun Company 1 Drake loses 8D No. 1 falls Fighting UK 11D Iowa 1 2D Hi. i i 1 Nov. 10, 1985 rui Lai Sunbaij jRcgistcr lit 4 II rr nno REGISTER PHOTO BY HARRY BAUMERT MARC HANSEN Center Point. Harlan head 3o.

6 loua batters hapless Illini Formidable defense gives up only 5 yards 4 I 11 I mmm Statistics Illinois low 27 43 232 316 59 27-41 1 6-422 10 5-62 First downs Rushes-yards Passing yards Return yards Passes Punts Fumbles-lost Penalties-yards 14 185 227 45 30-585 9348 54 1082 SCORING Illinois 0 0 0 00 Iowa 35 14 0 10 59 I Smith 49 pass from Long (Houghtlin kick) I Hudson 1 run (Houghtlin kick) I Smith 43 pass from Long (Houghtlin kick) I Harmon 46 run (Houghtlin kick) I Hudson 10 run (Houghtlin kick) I Flagg 1 pass from Long (Houghtlin kick) I Helverson 8 pass from Long (Houghtlin kick) l-FG 37 Houghtlin I Goodman 16 run (Houghtlin kick) By RON MALY Rtflttsr Staff Wrttor IOWA CITY, IA. With an incredible display of record-shattering firepower and rock-bard defense, sixth-ranked Iowa buried Illinois under a 59-0 avalanche Saturday to remain in the thick of the Big Ten Conference title and the Rose Bowl picture. The Fighting Illini caught Iowa in an angry mood, and were never a factor in a game that was played on a rainy, gloomy afternoon in Kinnick Stadium. Iowa and Illinois have been playing one another since 1899, and the Illini had to wait until Saturday to lose by this huge a margin in the series. Illinois gained Just 5 yards rushing against Iowa's unyielding defense.

"We were mad after being embarrassed on national television a week ago by Ohio State," said Hawkeye Coach Hayden Fry. "Wasn't this some kind of game? I guess you'd have to spell it M-O-M-E-N-T-U-M. Our youngsters were mentally prepared today." Fry's team responded with a magnificent first half, decking Illinois with a 35-point opening quarter en route to a record 49-0 lead at intermission. Chuck Long, who was intercepted four times while playing his worst game as an Iowa player in the 22-13 loss at Ohio State, blitzed Illinois with 289 yards passing and four touchdowns. Iowa scored the first five times it had the ball while pushing its season record to 8-1 and its Big Ten mark to HAWKEYES Please turn to Page 4D Iowa's Robert Smith is greeted in the end zone by teammate Scott Heherson Hawks shatter Trudeau's record didn't fare any better.

He was 4-for-ll and was intercepted once. "When a team gets a lead, they can start having fun," Trudeau said. "When a team gets a lead, good players become great players." Other Iowa interceptions came from cornerback Ken Sims, free safety Devon Mitchell and two reserves, safeties Rick Schmidt and Mike Bolan. Iowa Coach Hayden Fry emphasized the need to intercept Trudeau throughout last week's practices. "We thought if we could get one or two, it would have a demoralizing effect," Fry said.

"We geared our de- SECONDARY Please turn to Page 5D when Jay Norvell came up with a deflected pass at the Hawkeyes' 46-yard line with 9 minutes 2 seconds left in the first quarter. By then, Iowa already owned a 14-0 lead. Soon after, the Hawkeyes converted the interception into another touchdown. Iowa refers to its interceptions as "Oskys," and Norvell's was his seventh of the season, tops in the Big Ten. "Every day I pinch myself," said Norvell.

"Maybe I'll wake up and all this will be just a dream." For Trudeau, it was a nightmare. The senior quarterback, expected to be picked high in the National Football League draft, was 26-for-47 for 208 yards. His backup, Jim Bennett, REGISTER PHOTO BY BOB MODERSOHN prep playoffs Two No. 1 -ranked teams ace newcomers in finals Championship Pairings FINAL ROUND CLASS 4-A I p.m. Friday Sioux Cllv Heelan (1(H) vs.

Linn- Mar (Marion) (11-0) CLASS 3-A 2 p.m. Saturday Harlan (11-0) vs. Pleasant Valley -2 CLASS J-A 11 a.m. Saturday Algona Garrigan (9-1) vs. C.R.

LaSaU (9-2) CLASS 1-A 4 30 Friday Maurice-Orange City (10-1) vs. Center Point (11-0) CLASS A 1:30 p.m. Friday Sanborn (10-1) vs. Palon-Chur- dan (11-0) Saturday's Results SEMIFINAL ROUND CLASS 4-A Sioux City Heelan 21, M. Dowllng 0 Linn-Mar (Marlon) 20, Cedar Rapids Washing ton 14 CLASS 3-A Harlan 3, Webster City 0 (OT) Pleasant Valley 4, Waterloo Columbus 2 CLASS 2-A Algona Garrlgan 26, Clarinda 6 Cedar Rapids LaSalle 21, Wapsle Valley (Fair- bank) 13 CLASSS 1-A Maurice-Orange City 35, Manning 0 Center Point 40, Preston 7 CLASS A Sanborn 25, Nishna Valley (Hastings) 0 Paton-Churdan 7, A Men 0 By RANDY PETERSON Readier Staff Writer A oair of top-rated teams, including tradition-rich Harlan, will be playing in chamDionshio eames of the high school football playoffs next Friday and Saturday in the UNI-Dome in Ce dar Falls.

Harlan, which has won the past three Class 3-A state championships, will be looking for its fourth straight 3-A crown and fifth overall against No. 9 Pleasant Valley at 2 p.m. Satur day. Coach Curt Bladt's Cyclones, who edged Waterloo Columbus in the title Details: 2S game a year ago, 14-13, were looking forward to a rematch with the No. 2 Sailors after beating Webster City, 3-0, in overtime.

However, Pleasant Valley upset Waterloo Columbus, 6-2, to reach the 3-A title game. The other top-ranked team to enter championship competition was Class 1-A No. 1 Center Point, which will be playing in its second consecutive title game after a 40-7 victory over Pres ton. The Pointers will meet No. 10 Maurice-Orange City at 4:30 p.m.

Fri day. Center Point lost to Pocahontas, 15-6, in last year's finale. Another first-time championship entry is 4-A Linn-Mar of Marion, which advanced with a 20-14 upset victory over top-ranked Cedar Rapids Washington. The Lions go into Fri day's 8 p.m. title game against a Sioux City Heelan outfit that has been this route before it's the Crusaders' fourth title appearance.

Big Eight shooting for a new image By RICK BROWN Realtor Staff Writer KANSAS CITY. MO. The Bie Eight Conference, long regarded as a slow-motion, defense-dominated bas ketball league, has changed its image. "I don't think people realize we've been the No. 1 scoring league in tne nation the Dast two years," said Iowa State Coach Johnny Orr.

"They can't believe it. I think the coaches tney ve brought into the Big Eight have changed the style of the game. Billy Tubbs Oklahoma I. Tom Apke Colora do, Larry Brown (Kansas and myself have all been runners throughout our careers. I think it's this style that has made attendance boom and interest in our league boom." Even veteran Big Eight coaches Jack Hartman of Kansas State and Moe Iba of Nebraska, a pair of conser vatives on offense, are even talking about running more this season, to remain competitive with the new coaches.

"We are going to try and run," Hart- man acknowledged. "We have lm- Droved speed and quickness. But when we run to the other end of the floor, we want to make sure we have the ball Hartman said the Big Eight's slow- motion reDUtation came about not be cause of tortoise-like offenses, but ex cellent defense. "We've always had fine coaches, especially defensive-minded coaches, who never let you run unless they wanted to, Hartman said. "I think we've been stereotyped as a walk-it-up-the-floor league, and that's so unfair.

We averaged 75 points a BIG EIGHT Please turn to Page Game even impresses Long IOWA CITY, IA. Years from now, when Iowa football fans reminisce about the good old days back in the Hayden Fry era, when the talk turns to Chuck Long and how Hawkeye fans haven't seen his like at Kinnick Stadium since and probably never will, someone will recall Nov. 9, 1985. "This'll give you an idea of how good he was," the coffee shop experts will say. "Why, in the first quarter of the '85 Illinois game alone, he completed 10 of 12 passes for 188 yards and two touchdowns and Iowa led, 35-0, against a team that was supposed to be very good.

"But that wasn't the end of it. By halftime he was 18 of 24 for 256 yards with four touchdowns, and Iowa led, 49-0. Long demolished the Fighting II-lini single-handedly that day." Illinois. Not Northern Illinois or some Division I-AA fluff ball, but Illinois. The Illinois that features California coolers like Mike White and Jack Trudeau.

The Illinois that had played Michigan to a 3-3 tie the week before. THIS WAS also the Illinois that caved in like the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 of the World Series. You could call this one the college football version of the seventh game of the World Series. Chuck Long was Bret Saber-bagen in shoulder pads.

Trouble is, the Kansas City rout was only 11-0. This was more like Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson. Years from now, of course, the fans won't get Long's numbers right. Time will inflate them. And Long's teammates won't get the credit they deserve, he had more assistance in Saturday's 59-0 victory than a man trying to spend his lottery winnings.

A gimpy Ronnie Harmon shook loose for 88 yards in nine carries. The defense pilfered four passes from Trudeau, quarterback who hadn't allowed an interception in an NCAA record 215 consecutive attempts. His linemen protected him as if guarding ihe last beer in the refrigerator. His receivers were an amalgam of speed and elcro. They burned Illinois long; they froze the Illini short.

And they buried them for dead after the first quarter, "We could to no wrong in the first half," Long slid. "I knew we had it won by the middle of the second quarter. That first qiarter was a long one. It felt like an entire game." It was the entire game. The second half was a ragbag of interceptions, fumbles and endless substitutions.

Watching the stcond half was like taking in a "Gilligan's Island" rerun. Ten minutes later it was a blur. The first half, on the other hand, was pure Kane." THOUGH THE Hawkeyes were no gang of one, this game will stick in memory solely for Ue way Long packed a treasure chest worth of stun ning passing into half a ftotball game. The president of the Downtown Ath letic Club, the man who will hand out the Heisman Trophy at tht end of the season, reached into his bag of super latives a few months early. Gene Meyer, an Iowa graduate and a native of Cresco who now takes the pulse of Wall Street as an investment banker, told university President James O.

Freedman that if Satirday's game doesn't win a Heisman for Long, nothing would. "This has been awesome, absolutely awesome," Meyer said after the first half. "I can't think of a more Impressive quarterbacking performance ever in high schools or the pros." That's the good news. The bad hews is that Meyer has nothing to do whh the voting. Though Fry claimed Lon was never out of the Heisman running, Long claimed indifference.

"We lose one or two more," he said. "and the Heisman Trophy is out the window anyway." i The voters are sportswriters and sportscasters like Beano Cook, the ABC network analyst who evoked the fury of Iowa fans from Keokuk to Sioux Center. Two weeks ago, Cook criticized Fry for letting Long stay in against North-' western to throw six touchdown passes and roll up Heisman statistics. No matter, Cook added. The Buckeyes HANSEN Please turn to Page 5D Same old story: ISU walloped by Nebraska Statistics Iowa Stat Nebraska First downs 7 28 Rushes-yards 29-42 83 538 Passing yards 95 35 Return yards 14 19 Passes 10-27-1 3 8-0 Punts 11-42 5-45 Fumbles-lost 5-2 5-3 Penalties-yards 7-54 4-224 SCORING Iowa Stat 0 0 0 0 0 Nebraska 7 14 21 7 49 By BOB DYER Rrahter Staff Writer IOWA CITY, IA.

It was only a week before that Ohio State's ma ligned secondary had intercepted four of Chuck Long's passes to help the Buckeyes knock unbeaten Iowa from the nation's No. 1 ranking. Saturday, it was the Iowa defensive backs' turn to showcase their skills. The Hawkeyes intercepted four pas ses by Jack Trudeau four times in the first half and picked off a total of five en route to a shocking 59-0 rout of Illi nois. Trudeau hadn't had a pass inter cepted in 214 attempts before he got here Saturday.

That was an NCAA record. But the streak was stopped at 215 r- ffSV 'A it -to) rj 1 I tJi A 1 Vi By BUCK TURNBULL Rntitw Staff Wrtttr LINCOLN, NEB. What happened to Iowa State's football team here Saturday was simply a repeat of so many games that have gone before a drubbing by Nebraska. This time the Cyclones got walloped, 49-0. Last year they were whipped by the Huskers, 44-0.

And other recent Nebraska victories in the series have been by 35-0, 23-0 and 52-0. Iowa State teams over the last 15 years have suffered six shutouts and all have been adtninstered by Nebraska. Coach Tom Osborne's Huskers, ranked third in the nation and probably destined to move up at least one notch this week with Florida's loss to Georgia, unleashed a powerful rushing onslaught that buried Iowa State under a tidal wave of 538 yards in 83 running attempts. It was a performance be fitting of a potent outfit ranked No. 1 nationally in rushing offense.

Overall, Nebraska totaled 573 yards to just 137 for the Cyclones. "This was a very poorly played game by us on offense," said Cyclone Coach Jim Criner. "We gave Nebraska far too many opportunities. "You can't turn the ball over and drop as many passes as we did and expect to stay in the game with a team like Nebraska." The Cyclones were guilty of three turnovers, two fumbles and one pass interception, and Nebraska turned them all into scores. But just as disturbing to Criner were all the passes Alex Espinoza put right on the money, only to have his receivers fail to hang onto them.

Espinoza wound up completing only nine of 25 attempts for 86 yards, but at least nine others could have been handled similar to the Missouri game a Clayton 3 run (Klein kick) DuBose 3 run (Klein kick) Banderas 12 pass from Clayton (Klein kick) Rathman 32 run (Klein kick) Jones 1 run (Klein kick) Sheppard 20 run (Klein kick) Taylor 4 run (Klein kick) week ago, when eight dropped passes hampered the Cyclones in a 28-27 loss. "Any time receivers don't catch the ball, I have a tendency to get frustrated," said Espinoza. "But there's nothing I can do. My job is to put the ball where it can be caught, and for the receivers to catch it." The game was played in gloomy and adverse weather conditions, with a temperature of 28 degrees at the kick-off and a wind-chill factor of a frosty 4 degrees, but Criner refused to use that as an excuse for the butterfingers. "It's cold on both sides," he said.

"If you're going to throw the football, you've got to catch it, and we didn't do that. "Alex did a good job of getting the ball to the right people. I thought he played well." So did Brian Reffner, who was making his first start for the Cyclones at free safety. Reffner was credited with the astonishing total of 28 tackles, 19 of which were unassisted. That a defensive back should figure is so many tackles offers a good illus- CYCLONES Please turn to Page 7D ISU's Marques Rodgers seeks elusive daylight.