Tallahassee Democrat from Tallahassee, Florida • Page 22

2C Tallahassee DemocratSaturday, November 27, 1982 Huskers grind Sooners 28-24 1 1 I i f'f I TL r. 149 yards on 25 carries and Stanley Wilson's 1-yard dive around ir3-yard run by Nebraska's Craig. The triumph was Nebraska's second in a row over Oklahoma, but only the Cornhuskers' third in the lastll2 meetings with the Sooners. It marked the 36th time in the last 38 years lhat the winner of this annual shootout has won or shared the Big Eight A crowd of 76,396 Nebraska's 124th consecutive sellout dating back to 1962 and a national television audience watched these two bitterlri-vals put on a torrid offensive shpw for three periods. I With Nebraska threatening to put the game away early in the second half, Dupree got the Sooners back into it with his 86-yard sprint doym the left sideline on the third play; of the second half.

That made it 21-17 Oklahoma had disdained a chip-shot field goal with 3:09 left in the first half, a move that backfired when quarterback Kelly Phelps overthrew a receiver in the end zone but Nebraska marched 80 yards in 12 plays for the decisive touchdown midway through the third period. The key plays were an 11-yard keeper by Gill on third-and-14 at the Nebraska 31, plus a personal foul against Oklahoma; an 18-yard run by Craig and a 10-yard pass from Gill to Todd Brown at the Oklahoma 3. Craig, who has played second-fiddle to Rozier most of the season, then circled left end with a pitchout and a 28-17 lead at 8:35 of the period. Oklahoma, helped by a 15-yard penalty against Nebraska for having 12 men on the field, retaliated with a 78-yard drive, with backup tailback Fred Sims carrying six times for 35 yards and Phelps running for three key first downs, before Wilson vaulted oyer the line with 30 seconds left in the third quarter. The Sooners reached the Nebraska 34- and 35-yard lines in the final period, but Phelps failed to complete any of his last 10 passes and both threats fizzled.

Rozier, gamely playing on a sprained ankle, led Nebraska's 298-yard ground assault the Cornhuskers had averaged 395.5 over their first 10 games with 96 yards on 15 carries, although he limped off twice in the first half before giving way to Craig for good early in the third LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) Fullback Doug Wilkening, only fifth on Nebraska's awesome 1982 list of runners, scored on bursts of 2 and 14 yards in the second period Saturday and led the third-ranked Cornhuskers to the Big Eight championship and a berth in the Orange Bowl with a 28-24 victory over archrival Oklahoma. Nebraska's high-powered offense No. 1 both in total offense and rushing plowed through Oklahoma's defense for 272 first-half yards en route to a 21-10 lead at the intermission. A total of 205 yards came on the ground, with Wilkening, tailbacks Mike Rozier and Roger Craig and quarterback Turner Gill all contributing vital chunks.

The victory was Nebraska's eighth in a row and sent the Cornhuskers off to Honolulu for next week's regular-season windup against the University of Hawaii with a 10-1 record and their second consecutive Big Eight crown after winning all seven conference games. They will meet LSU in Miami on New Year's night, while llth-ranked Oklahoma, 8-3 overall and 6-1 in the Big Eight, heads to the Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl against either Arizona State or Washington. Wilkening's 2-yard touchdown run at 3:39 of the second period gave Nebraska a 14-10 lead and capped a 78-yard drive, which included a tricky 37-yard pass from wingback Irving Fryar to backup tight end Mitch Krenk after Gill intentionally bounced an overhand backward pass to Fryar, a play designed to look like an incompletion and make Oklahoma's defense ease up. That erased a 10-7 lead that Oklahoma built on freshman Marcus Du-pree's 2-yard run in the first period and Michael Reeling's 27-yard field goal early in the second quarter.

Nebraska had taken an early 7-0 lead on Gill's 14-yard run on fourth-and-one, 10 plays after Oklahoma's Scott Case fumbled a punt and Dean Steinkuhler recovered for the Cornhuskers on the Sooners' 44. Less than 4 -minutes after Wilkening's first touchdown, the Cornhuskers stormed 62 yards in seven plays, with Wilkening ramming between center and right guard the same place as his first TD and scoring virtually untouched from the .14. Oklahoma made it close in the third period, scoring on an 86-yard run by Dupree who finished with Oklahoma freshman Marcus Dupree reaches to pull in a loose ball after it was stripped from him by Nebraska's defense Perm State uses all its might to beat Pitt State at the Panthers' 30. Senior running back Curt Warner, who gained over 100 yards for the 17th time, picked up 5 yards, Joel Coles 2 and Warner 2 more. On a fourth down and 1 at the Pitt 21, Blackledge threw 8 yards to tight end Mike McCloskey.

But Pitt, which has the nation's second-ranked defense, held, and State had to settle for Gancitano's 31-yard field goal that made it 13-7. After another short punt, State started a drive late in the third quarter that ended with Gancitano kicking a 19-yard field goal 9 seconds into the final period. That made it 16-7. Pitt's final points came on a 17-yard field goal by Eric Schubert with 8:04 left in the game. Gancitano completed the scoring with a 29-yard field goal with 53 seconds left.

CI. rm STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) Penn State used its 1-2 punch of passer Todd Blackledge and running back Curt Warner, a strong defense and four field goals by Nick Gancitano to move within one game of its first national championship Friday. State's Nittany Lions fell behind traditional rival Pittsburgh 7-3 at halftime, but rallied in the final two periods to beat the fifth-ranked Panthers 19-10. "Our squad felt at halftime that we were in good shape at 7-3," said Penn State coach Joe Paterno.

"I don't think there was any one point in the game where we felt we weren't in it." The Penn State coach came to the defense of his defense. "They have been maligned. But they have played against some good offensive teams. It is an intelligent defensive team and they played very well," he said. Blackledge completed only 10 of 24 passes for 149 yards, but one was a 31-yarder to flanker Kenny Jackson in the third period that put the Lions ahead to stay.

Blackledge shouted after the game, "Just one more, that's all we need." Second-ranked State, which collected the rest of its points on Gancitano's field goals, boosted its record to 10-1. The Lions are going to the Sugar Bowl for a New Year's night title confrontation against top-ranked Georgia. Pitt coach Foge Fazio, who will take his team to the Cotton Bowl to meet Southern Methodist (10-0-1) New Year's day, felt that he made the mistake that cost the Panthers (9-2) a chance to win. Trailing 16-7 in the fourth period with 6:56 remaining, Pitt had fourth down and less than a yard for a touchdown. Fazio decided to go for a field goal that made it 16-10.

"If I had to do it over, I probably would have gone for the touchdown," Fazio said. There was a penalty on the previous play that Fazio thought gave Pitt a first down, but the officials thought otherwise. "We probably should have called time out and talked it over," said the Pitt coach. Penn State trailed 7-3 starting the third quarter in what had been a rugged, evenly played contest in 30-degree weather with wind gusts of 25 to 30 miles per hour. It may have been the wind that turned the game around.

After a 1-yard loss, Blackledge threw to Jackson for the TD that put the Nittany Lions ahead with 8:27 in the period. After the ensuing kickoff, Recchia was the victim of a high snap from center. Although he ran for 7 yards, Recchia was short of a first down and turned the ball over to w' at 5 1 1 I 1 I i I 7P 1 Mtftf "AP Lion Kenny Jackson scores on 31 -yd. pass Penn State's Jon Williams, 44, lets the ball squirt loose near Panther Al Wenglikowskf Walker expected to edge Elway in Heisman vote winner Georgia was undefeated and No. 1 in the country going into Saturday's game with Georgia Tech, compared to the 5-6 finish of Elway's Stanford team.

"It's tough for me," Elway acknowledged recently. "Not many Heisman Trophy winners have come off a losing team." Walker also has an intangible going for him a feeling among many voters that he was denied the Heisman in his first two years only because he was an underclassman. In fact, Walker's statistics this year are slightly less impressive than in his first two seasons, primarily because he played with a broken thumb for the first few weeks of the season. Nonetheless, going into the Georgia Tech game, he had gained 1,590 yards in 308 carries, an average of 5.2 yards a carry and 159 yards a game. That puts his career yardage at 5,097, fourth on the all time rushing list, less than L000 yards from Tony Dor-sett's all-time career record with a full season to go.

NEW YORK (AP) The Heisman Trophy, symbol of college football excellence, will be awarded again next Saturday with Herschel Walker or John Elway likely to make the winner a back for the 46th time in 48 years. Walker, the Georgia running back who was third as a freshman two years ago and second last year, is favored to advance the final step this year. If anyone can keep him from it, it's probably Elway, the Stanford quarterback who's broken most of the passing records at a school that's turned out platoons of great signal-callers. The award, decided by a nationwide vote of sports writers and sportscasters, will be made at the Downtown Athletic Club just before 8 p.m EST, following an hour-long film on the trophy and its history. The award and the film will be telecast nationwide over an independent network.

Walker and EJway, other contenders for the Heisman include running back Eric Dickerson of Southern Methodist, quarterbacks Dan Marino of Pitt and Todd Blackledge of Penn State and flanker Anthony Carter of Michigan. The sleeper is center David Rimington of Nebraska, named for the second year in a row the winner of the Outland Trophy as the nation's best lineman. But Rimington is in an almost impossible spot. Only two linemen in history have won the Heisman and both of them were ends who also played defense Larry Kelley of Yale in 1936 and Leon Hart of Notre Dame in 1949. In recent years, only Hugh Green of Pitt, a defensive end with a penchant for eye-catching plays, came close.

He was second to running back George Rogers of South Carolina in 1980. Walker has several advantages over Elway in the quest for the Heisman. He is a running back and running backs have won the Heismfm every year since 1972, when, the winner was wingback Johnny Rodgers of Nebraska; he plays for a Elway, who played minor league baseball last summer in the New York Yankee system, would be the first quarterback to capture the Heisman since 1971, whenPat Sullivan of Auburn edged out running back Ed Marinaro of Cornell. He completed 262 of 405 passes this season for 3,242 yards and threw for 24 touchdowns. In his four-year career, he passed for 9,349 yards and 71 touchdowns.

Dickerson, who alternates at tailback with Craig James for SMU's 10-0-1 Mustangs, averaged 7 yards per carry this season. He rushed for 1,617 yards, an average of 147 a game. The two Pennsylvania quarterbacks seemed to go in opposite directions this season. Marino was rated a prime Heisman contender, but showed only flashes of the past two years as the Pitt offense sputtered. Blackledge, on the other hjnd, suddenly blossomed in hip junior year, throwing for more than 2,000 yards and 22 touchdowns..