Argus-Leader from Sioux Falls, South Dakota • Page 36

4c SPORTS Argus Leader, Sioux FaHs, South Dakota, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2000 WHrWJfgUtltidf.COm HFL PLAYOFFS a 9 i a field goal and a 13-0 lead, the Bucs were officially desperate. With backup Eric Zeier warming up, King finally put a drive together after the Bucs took possession late in the third quarter on an interception by John Lynch. Beginning at their 27, the Bucs went to the air. King found Dunn for FAS 1 -mi 16 yards on an out pattern, then nailed tight end Dave Moore over the middle for 17 more yards.

But the big play in the drive came when Dunn broke down the left sideline on a deep route and was knocked down by safety Leomont Evans, who was flagged for interference. That set up Tampa Bay on the Washington 1 1-yard line and made possible the 2-yard TD run by Alstott that it took him about 20 yards to finish. Alstott bounced off several tacklers and appeared to be stopped twice. The winning drive had its own quirks. It began when Johnson was sacked by Steve White, Sapp recovering the resulting fumble.

Sapp tried to pick up the ball but fell on it instead, which proved just as good for Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay stayed on the ground, getting a big first down at the 4 on a fourth-and-1 plunge by Alstott before King rolled to the right and laid a nice pass over Davis' right shoulder for the touchdown and -after the extra point a lead that would stand up. 7 1-1 7-M Second QuvHr Was-fG Conway 28, 5.37. TrMQutrt Was-Mitchel 100 kickoff return (Conway kick), 14:41. Was-fG Conway 48.

1:10. TB-AWotl 2 run (Gnmatici kick), 2:03. Fourth Qurter TBsl.Davis 1 pass from King (Gramatica kick), 729. Bad snap snuffs late 'Skins FG try By BOB FORD KnigttRidder TAMPA. Fla.

Looking lifeless and with barely more than a quarter to salvage their season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers revived against Washington on Saturday and advanced to the NFC championship game with a 14-13 victory. It wasnt the stuff of legends -there was no dramatic John El way-type drive at the finish, no disputed lateral to dissect but the reversal was just enough to move the Bucs to within a step of the Super BowL They will play either SL Louis or Minnesota next week. With a sturdy defense but no offense to speak of, the Bucs were being booed by their rabid supporters after falling behind by 13-0 when the Redskins' Brian Mitchell set a playoff record with a 100-yard runback of the second-half kickoff. Tampa Bay waited until late in the third period to begin its climb. Its first touchdown drive which ended with a 2-yard run by Mike Alstott was largely made possible by an interference call on the Redskins.

Its go-ahead drive, which came midway through the fourth quarter, was kept alive when, after rookie quarterback Shaun King fumbled on a third-and-4 play, running back Warrick Dunn scooped up the ball and ran for a first down. That march ended with King finding tight end John Davis with a 1-yard rollout pass for the touchdown. Washington had a chance to win on a 52-yard field-goal attempt by Brett Conway with just over a minute remaining, but a bad snap forced holder Brad Johnson to scramble, and a sack ended the Redskins' last hope. For those who enjoy a taut defensive struggle, the first half was cake with ice cream on the side. For those who like to stay awake, it wasnt so great.

Neither team was able to move the ball with any consistency, and the half became a battle of field position decided more by the punters than anyone else. Tampa Bay had the ball for six possessions in the first half, not counting in a bombs-away situation at the end. All six ended with punts, Associated Press Miami quarterback Dan Marino (13) is sacked by Jacksonville's Gary Walker (96) during the second quarter on Saturday. Jags humble Miami, Marino First-period explosion leads 62-7 rout Associated Press Tampa Bay fullback Mike Alstott runs around the Washington Redskins defense to score the Bucs' first TD during the third quarter Saturday. "if IB First downs 10 12 Rushes-pro 22-46 2744 Passing 111 142 Punt Return 5-44 1-7 KickotlRetums 3-125 4-68 Interacts Ret 1-12 1-H Comp--lnt 20-32-t 15-32-1 Sacked-YardsLost 4-38 2-15 Purtt 8-421 FumWes-loS 2-1 1-0 Penalties-Yards 4-61 2-25 Time of Possession 28:25 31:35 media.

"I feel bad for our guys. I wish I could have at least had them fresh and given them a chance. I didn't give them a chance. And that's what we've got to live with." Marino, meanwhile, didn't even want to entertain thoughts of retirement. Twice, he snapped, "Don't ask me that now!" during his press conference.

"I talked about this many times already this year, and I'll wait and see as time goes on what the circumstances are here with the Dolphins, myself and how I feel," he said. Jacksonville built a 24-0 lead by the end of the first quarter. By the end, the Jags had a whopping 520 total yards and nearly as many touchdowns (eight) as the Dolphins had first downs (10). Miami's first offensive play a horrid Marino interception down the sideline was a sign of the avalanche of errors to come. The first half then became a laugher of historical proportions with Miami turning the ball over five times and getting a punt blocked, while Jacksonville scored at will.

The Jags led 38-0 before a Dolphins first down. Jags' quarterback Mark Brunell (105 passing yards, two TDs) was out of the game resting before Marino completed his first pass. Miami Jacksonville 0 7 0 24 17 14 0- 7 7-82 First Quart 8 pass from Brunell (Mollis kick), 10:32. Jac-fG Hollis 45, 6:19. Jac-f.

Taylor 90 ran (Hollis kick), 3:46. Jac-Brackens 16 fumble return (Hollis kick), 3:31. Second Quarter Jac-f Taylor 39 pass from Brunell (Hollis kick), 14:48. 25 run (Hollis kick), 12:05. Jac-fG Hollis 28, 1:51.

Mia-Gadsden 20 pass from Marino (Mare kick), Third Quarter 70 pass from Fiedler (Hollis kick), 12:03. Jac-Whitted 38 pass from Fiedler (Hollis kick), 6:19. Fourtti Quarter Jac-Howard 5 run (Hollis kick), 10:37. Colts, Titans seek more By JOHN DENTON Florida Today JACKSONVILLE, Ha. The Jacksonville Jaguars decisively answered any questions about their legitimacy as bona fide Super Bowl contenders Saturday by routingthe Miami Dolphins, 62-7, in the AFC Divisional playoff.

Jacksonville battered Miami into submission early, scoring points seemingly at will in the first half The defeat ended the Dolphins' season and quite possibly the career of quarterback Dan Marino. Had this been a fight, it would have been stopped early. The carnage left behind and bluntness of the beating seemed to stun both sides, bringing Miami's Jimmy Johnson to near tears, while the Jaguars glowed. "I have never," Marino mumbled with his eyes cast downward, "experienced a game like this, ever. Not even as a kid have I been in one like this." The Jaguars' 62 points and 55-point margin of victory are second in history only to Chicago's 73-0 defeat of Washington in 1940.

It was easily Miami's most lopsided loss in the playoffs, eclipsing last season's 38-3 whipping at Denver. "It's a big statement," said linebacker Kevin Hardy, part of a defense that forced seven Miami turnovers. "Any playoff win is big, but a 62-7 whipping says that you are ready to play. It says the Jags are for real." Top-seeded Jacksonville (15-2) now awaits the winner of today's game between Indianapolis (13-3) and Tennessee (14-3). Regardless of the outcome, the AFC Championship Game will be played Sunday in Jacksonville.

Including two playoffs wins, the Jags are 23-3 at home over the past three seasons. "I don't think this team will lose its focus with what's ahead," said coach Tom Coughlin, who has the Jaguars in the AFC title game for the second time in five seasons. Miami, meanwhile, limps back to South Florida with more questions than answers hovering over a season that went sour. Could this be it for Marino, who tossed two interceptions and lost a fumble? Could Johnson's reign in Miami end? "I've never been on this side before," said a distraught Johnson, who did not take questions from the and the Bucs racked up a total of two first downs. King went just 4 for 14 in the half, and he wasn't able to buy much time with the running game, either.

The Bucs gained just 24 yards on 12 carries in the half. Washington, meanwhile, didn't do anything particularly great, either, in the opening half, but it was able to make a few dents in the second-ranked Tampa Bay defense. The Redskins' running game was stuffed at the line in the first half, with slightly gimpy Stephen Davis still getting the ball 12 times for 35 yards. But Johnson was able to find the seams on slant routes to his wide receivers. He completed 12 of 15 passes for 110 yards, twice dri oldest starter on the Colts' offense.

"Then we got into midseason and knew what kind of team we were and the expectations rose. Now we're expected to win." The Titans (13-3) finally found a home in Adelphia Coliseum, their fourth stadium in four seasons after wandering from Houston to Memphis to Nashville. They handed Jacksonville their only two losses, made the playoffs for the first time since 1993, when they were the Houston Oilers and Warren Moon was the quarterback, then beat Buffalo in last week's wild-card game on Frank Wycheck's lateral that Kevin Dyson returned for a touchdown. "It's been a new thing this year, the name change and the Coliseum," coach Jeff Fisher said. "It was a difficult set of circumstances this team endured for four years." That's not the only thing that helped the revival.

Look first at the player called "The Freak" rookie defensive end Jevon Kearse, who was defensive rookie of the year. "He may be the best in the history of this business," Floyd Reese, the Titans' general manager, said. Thus the contrasts. Manning, whose quick release rivals Dan Marino's, was sacked only 14 times this season. Kearse 1 A' 1, ving the Skins into Tampa Bay territory.

One drive ended when Warren. Sapp broke through to sack Johnson, but the other extended by a 19-yard pass to Albert Connell and a 12-yard run by Davis led to a field goal. In this game, that qualified as an offensive explosion. Conway's 28-yard field goal with 5:37 left in the first half looked as if it might hold up by itself unless Tampa Bay discovered some offense. Not only didn't that happen before halftime, but after Mitchell opened the second half with his 100-yard kickoff runback and the next Washington possession netted a set a rookie record with 14Vi sacks and forced 10 fumbles, one reason why the Titans led the league with 24 rumble recoveries.

On the other hand, the Colts gave up an average of 141 yards on the ground in their past three games -one of them an ugly 29-28 win over 2-14 Cleveland, another a 31-6 loss at Buffalo in the final game. Now, they are hampered by the absence of linebacker Cornelius Bennett, the leader of the defense, who is out with a knee injury. That leads to assumptions that the Tennessee game plan will be simple hand the ball to Eddie George and let him run. Fisher doesn't think so. "If you do that," he said, "you play a 10-9 game.

The Colts don't play 10-9 games." Indeed they don't. With Manning throwing to Marvin Harrison, and rookie Edgerrin James running for 1,553 yards and catching 62 passes, Indianapolis was held to fewer than 20 points only three times twice in tight wins over the New York Jets and in the finale against Buffalo. James, the off ensive rookie of the year, presents another intriguing angle to this game. He grew up only 25 miles from Kearse, the defensive rookie, in southwest Florida, has known Kearse since childhood. Valuable Player.

"If I had known he was this good, I would have started him last year," Vermeil said. "But you don't know that." All Vermeil really knew was that he had the nucleus of a pretty good team by the end of the 1998 season, despite the Rams' 4-12 record. He had an outstanding offensive tackle in Orlando Pace, an excellent wide receiver in Isaac Bruce and a quality defensive end in Kevin Carter. The addition of running back Marshall Faulk in a draft-day deal gave Vermeil a solid set of weapons, but even he wouldn't have predicted a 13-3 season. With Warner as the offensive catalyst, however, that's exactly the season the Rams had.

And, while it might have caught the rest of the world by surprise, Warner says he expected to succeed after spending time in the Arena Football League and NFL Europe. "I probably played as much football as anybody around," Warner said "So to say that I haven't played and haven't fine-tuned my skills is kind of crazy, so I knew coming in what to expect of myself, what I could do and what was going to do Ml Jac First downs 10 21 Rushes-yards 18-21 46-257 Passing 110 263 Punt Returns 3-70 5-44 Kickoff Returns 9-206 2-24 Interceptions Ret 1-0 2-5 Comp-Att-Int 16-41-2 12-20-1 Sacked-YardsLost 5-31 2-14 Punts Fumbles-Lost 6-5 1-1 Penalties-Yards 9-88 7-51 Time of Possession 24:37 35:23 WDrvnXJAL STATISTICS RUSHING-Washington, S.Davis 17-37, Centers 1-7, Mitchell 1-1, Thrash 1-1, Hicks 1-0, Westbrook 1-0. Tampa Bay, Alstott 15-24, Dunn 11-18, King 1-2. PASSING-Wastnngton, Johnson Bay, Nna 15-32-1-157. RECEIVING-Washington, Connell 4-59, Fryar 4-30, Davis 3-26, Centers 3-8, Hicks 2-17, Mitchell 2-1 Alexander 1-4.

Westbrook 1-4. Tampa Bav. Dunn 4-32. Alstott 3-17. Emanuel 2-47.

Moore 2-32, J.Green 2-25. Williams 1-3. J.Davis 1-1. MISSED FIELD GOALS-None. Colts vs.

Titans WHEiWHERE: 3 p.m. today in Indianapolis. TVRADIO: KELO-TV; KWSN-AM 1230. RECORDS: Indianapolis 13-3, Tennessee 14-3. LINE: Colts by 512.

SERIES: Tied 7-7. COLTS KEYS: Colts yielded a league-low 1 4 sacks. QB Peyton Manning's protection must remain solid against Tennessee's relentless pass rush. The Titans ranked third during the regular season with 54 sacks, then added six in their miracle wild-card win. TITANS KEYS: Look tor Titans coach Jeff Fisher to play it close to the vest offensively.

That translates into a heavy workload for RB Eddie George. He pounded away for 1 06 yards against the Bills' physical defense last week and takes aim on the Colts' defense, which allowed an average of 1 41 rushing yards in the last three games. QB Steve McNair has been somewhat inconsistent with his passing, but he could do serious damage. when I got out on the football field. "To me, it is not like I just started playing football.

I have played a lot of football." Although Warner is, the unknown, the success of George might be even more surprising to some NFL observers who have seen him short-circuit in stops at Indianapolis, Atlanta and Oakland. Dennis Green isn't one of them, however. In fact, he says he felt the Vikings had the kind of veteran team, system and atmosphere in which George could flourish. "We have continuity," Green said, "so we have the exact same system we put in back in 1992, so whether it was Rich Gannon or Sean Salisbury or Warren Moon or Brad Johnson or Randall Cunningham or Jeff George, I think the players already know the system. "If the quarterback comes in and helps them, they are not all learning it all new, because we have had the same system all that period of time." Green put George to work in the second half of the Oct.

17 game against the Lions and, although the Vikings lost that game, they won eight of their remaining 10., By DAVE GOLDBERG AP Football Writer INDIANAPOLIS The Tennessee Titans reached the AFC semifinals by way of a miracle a lateral turned into a kickoff return in the waning seconds to beat the Buffalo Bills. The Indianapolis Colts are a miracle in themselves, a 3-13 team a year ago metamorphasized into a 13-3 team, the best single-season turnaround in NFL history, forged largely by a second-year quarterback who's a legend in Tennessee, Welcome to perhaps the most attractive matchup of the second round of the playoffs two of the four best teams (record-wise) in the NFL for a chance to move on to the AFC title game, a matchup of contrasting strengths and weaknesses. The Colts have been one of the NFL's most pleasant surprises. Led by Peyton Manning, whose statue adorns the campus of the University of Tennessee, they won the NFL's toughest division, the AFC East, and made it to the playoffs as the conference's second seed. So big a hero is Manning in Tennessee that some fans in the state have divided loyalties about Sunday's game.

"Nobody expected a lot out of us," said tight end Ken Dilger, 27, the Poppinga hurt pounder. Poppinga finished with four tackles. He may have had an interception near the goal line had University of North Dakota safety Kelly Howe not knocked the ball away. Howe came over to help Poppinga on a deep pass play but, without malice, batted away a possible Poppinga interception at the last moment. "(Howe) is like, 'I'm Poppinga said.

"It's fun to play with the guys you've been playing against for four years. It's kind of neat." Corte McGuffey of Northern Colorado who won the Harlon Hill trophy this season, led the West with two touchdown passes. Following a West field goal that cut the East advantage to 14-6 in the third period, Northwest Missouri State defensive end Alan Buckwalter smacked East quarterback Brian Baughman and caused a fumble. UND's Glen Matthews recovered the loose ball at the East 7. From there, McGuffey, named as the offensive MVP of the game, threw a 7-yard touchdown pass.

Playoffs: QBs surprise with success USD's White tests well for NFL; INDIVlDUALSTATlSnCS RUSHING-Miami, Denson 6-10, Pritcnett 2-10, JJohnson 8-9, Marino 1-0, Hutton 1-(minus 8). Jacksonville, F.Taylor 18-135, J.Stewart 11-62, Howard 15-54, Brunell 1-6, Shelton 1-0. PASSING-Miami, Marino 11-25-2-95, HuaroVO-46. Jacksonville, Brunell 5-9-0-105, Fiedler 7-11-1-172. RECEIVING-Miami, Gadsden 6-62, Konrad 3-30, McDuffie 2-19, Pritcnett 2-17, J.Johnson 2-11, Drayton 1-2.

Jacksonville, J.Smith 5-136, McCardell 4-52, F.Taylor 1-39, Whitted 1-38, Shelton 1-12. MISSED FIELD GOAL-Jacksonvilh), Hollis 39 (WL). White's best numbers came ear lier in the week, however. While testing for the NFL scouts that passed through during the week, White ran a 4.38 40-yard dash, one of the fastest ever run in the short history of the Snow Bowl. The Snow Bowl gives NFL scouts a good opportunity to see and test the skills of Division II players.

"I think I'll get a shot (at the NFL)," said White. "A lot of scouts said I'll be somewhere." White left the game early in the fourth quarter after injuring his right ankle. Four other North Central Conference players, including" Augustana cornerback Shannon Poppinga, departed prematurely because of injury. "(The coaches) told me not to come back in. They told me the next level is what counts," said White, alluding to a possible NFL opportunity.

Poppinga exited the game in the third quarter with a possible torn medial collateral ligament. It capped a sub-par week for Poppinga, according to the Harrisburg product. "The week didn't go real well," said Poppinga, a 6-foot, 188- Continued from 1C season, sent him to Amsterdam to play in the NFL Europe in 1998 and made him the backup to the Rams' newly signed No. 1 quarterback, Trent Green, in 1999. And that was mistake No.

2. Green was injured in the Rams' first exhibition game and, amid his tears of despair, Vermeil announced that Warner would be his starting quarterback. Six games into the regular season, Cunningham was in collapse, his confidence shot, and the Vikings were fading fast at 2-4, so coach Dennis Green made the move to George as the starter. And to show you how really crazy the NFL is this season, St. Louis and Minnesota Warner and George will battle today in a second-round playoff game in St.

Louis, with the winner moving on to the NFC championship game against Tampa Bay. Warner completed 65.1 percent of his passes for 4,353 yards and 41 touchdowns with a Steve Younglike 109.2 passer rating this season, and was namedthe NFL's Most ByTIMSALWEI Special to the Argus Leader FARGO, N.D. Jamel White finally got some breathing room late Saturday afternoon. After catching three swing pass-es that netted him negative yardage, the University of South Dakota running back caught a pass with nobody in front of him. White made good on the golden opportunity as his two-point conversion passed helped his West team to a 24-22 win over the East in the seventh annual Snow Bowl in front of 6,248 at the Fargodome.

"I saw the end zone, White said. "That was good enough for me." White, who rushed for 1,716 yards for the Coyotes, carried the ball five times for eight yards. "I was a little frustrated because we didn't get a lot of yards rushing," said the 5-10, 210-pound White. "I just sucked it up and did what I needed to do." White's conversion pass tied the score at 14-14 with 7 minutes, 43 seconds left in the third quarter..