The Lincoln Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • 27

rm i i pp mw wp tv rt rf rrT rr1 rw SECTION Journal anb Nov. 23, 1980 Lincoln, Neb. kJvJI ioPockctbook Aaani Mi! OU pulls usual trick oe MJ Oklahoma wins, 21-17 Oklo Neb First downs 17 ig Rushevvords 62-249 58-314 Passing yards 26 76 Plays-offensive yards 69-275 71-390 Return yards 9 7 Passes 2-7-0 7-13-1 Punts 8 8 Fumbles-last 5-2 4-1 Turnovers 2 2 Penalties-yards 5-31 7-70 Third-down conversions 5-15 5-14 Tim Of possession 34:49 25:11 By Vlroll Parker Sports Editor Every lime Nebraska plays Oklahoma in football, it's like an instant replay of Lucy and Charlie Brown. Lucy always promises to hold the ball for Charlie. But at the last second she pulls it away and he falls flat Sooner quarterback J.C.

Watts played the role of Lucy at Memorial Stadium Saturday. Twice, at the last second, he pulled the ball away and pitched it out to speedy freshman halfback George "Buster" Rhymes, The two plays gained 31 and 43 yards nearly a third of Oklahoma's rushing yardage for the entire day. More importantly, both of Rhymes' long runs set up touchdowns. And, in each case, the Sooners were behind at the time. The first, with less than two minutes remaining in the first half, pulled Oklahoma from a 10-7 deficit into a 14-10 intermission lead.

The second led to a Sooner score with just 56 seconds left in the game, rescuing Oklahoma from the brink of a 17-14 defeat and propelling the Sooners to a 21-17 victory. The win, Oklahoma's ninth over the Uuskers in the last 10 meetings, guarantees Oklahoma a tie for the Big Eight "Vv i I All ri lift I Conference championship. That's nothing new. The Sooners have won the league crown outright, or shared it, each of the last eight Mit)Miriaii The victory also sends Oklahoma to yet another Orange Bowl probably. STAFP COLORPHOTO BV RANDY HAMPTON Dadgummit! nior varsity coach Frank Solich during Nebi junior varsity coach Frank Solich during Nebraska coach Tom Osborne is a picture of frustration and anger as is his Nebraska's 21-17 loss to Oklahoma.

It was NU's eighth icss in nine tries against the Sooners during Osborne's tenure. Excitement ends in bitter drama for Huskers Switzer still wants tamales in Miami Philosophy no comfort for NU's Nelson Nebraska still has two chances for the trip to Miami slim and none. The Huskers will get the Orange Bowl bid only if Oklahoma State (a 23-21 loser to Iowa State Saturday) beats Oklahoma next weekend. Since that's unlikely, Oklahoma will be making its fifth trip to the Orange Bowl in the last six seasons. Despite the loss, Nebraska will be making its 12th bowl appearance in a row.

The string started with the Sun Bowl after the 1969 season. The Huskers, now 9-2 on the year, are headed back to El Paso again. This time they'll play Mississippi State, also 9-2, a team that toppled Alabama from the un- Sun Bowl ticket info? See story on Page 2C beaten ranks earlier this fall The Bulldogs came from behind in the fourth quarter Saturday to pull out a 1913 victory over archrival Ole Miss. The last-second heroics of Rhymes to set up the game-deciding touchdown were reminiscent of four years ago in Lincoln when the Huskers were playing and seemingly beating Oklahoma for a Big Eight championship and an Orange Bowl berth. That time, the Sooners were trailing 17-13 when they got the ball on their own 16 yard line with 3:30 left in the game.

(Nebraska led 17-14 Saturday when OU got the ball on its 20 yardline with 3 16 remaining.) The "flea-flicker" pass-lateral play that broke Nebraska's back four years ago featured the running of Elvis Peacock, who played his high school football in Miami and who wore jersey No. 4. Ditto Rhymes on both counts. So, under nearly identical circum- SeeHUSKERSonPoge4D ules and making plans to spend Christmas in El Paso while waiting to watch Nebraska play Mississippi State in the Sun Bowl, Dec. 27.

Switzer and the ghosts of Sooners past saw to it that the Cornhuskers would go to west Texas for the holidays. Before Saturday's game, the OU head coach read "30 or so telegrams" to his players. The telegrams were written by former Sooners such as Dewey and Lee Roy Selmon, Darrol Ray, Billy Sims, and George Cumby. "They were with us today," said Switzer. "That got us psyched," sophomore running back Chet Winters said, adding that Switzer also read from a newspaper clipping which attributed some remarks disparaging of Oklahoma to NU I-back Jarvis Redwine.

"He (Redwine) said we were like Iowa State and Kansas (State) and that really got our defense cranked up," Winters said. But telegrams and a newspaper clipping didn't beat Nebraska 21-17; speedy and talented players did. One of the more notable this particular Saturday afternoon was a freshman from Miami, no less, one George "Buster" Rhymes. Rhymes claims he can run 100 yards in 9.6 seconds. It was he who scored the winning touchdown with 56 seconds remaining in the game, on the fifth play after a 43-yard run down the west sideline.

"He played pretty good for a rookie," said Switzer, who used Rhymes' performance to get in a dig at Ne- By Mike Babcock Staff Sports Writer Just before the obligatory post-game shower, taken fully clothed according to the unwritten rules for celebrating great and emotional upsets, Oklahoma head football coach Barry Switzer posed a question to his exaltant Sooners. "Wait a minute; quiet down. I've got just one question for y'all," Switzer sail "Are there any good Mexican restaurants in Miami?" Switzer, who earlier in the week stated a preference for eating stone crabs in Miami, to eating tamales in El Paso, Texas, never got a definitive answer. He got dunked. Pandemonium was the order of the moment.

Minutes later, water dripped from his hair as he explained to the assembled media how Oklahoma had beaten Nebraska again, for the ninth time in the last 10 games between the teams, and likely would be returning to the Orange Bowl on New Year's Day night for the fourth time in the last five years. "I'm never critical of being in Miami," said Switzer. "I know they'd (Orange Bowl) like to have someone else. But if we hadn't been on probation in 1973 and 1974, we'd have been there, too, and they'd re-, ally be tired of us. "I just wish we had a better record for 'em," he said.

True Nebraska optimists were saying such concern is premature, that the 8-2 Sooners still must defeat intrastate rival Oklahoma State next week in Norman to earn another trip to Miami Cornhusker realists were checking flight sched Maybe is a word Nelson despises. After he used it, he wanted to take it back. Nebraska safety Russell Gary would like to freeze time and return to life just before OU quarterback J.C. Watts pitched to Rhymes with 1:50 remaining. "It looked to me like nobody had the quarterback," Gary said.

"I was supposed to take the pitch. They came around me, so I tried to make the split and cover them both. "I went for the quarterback to make things happen, but he pitched around me. Then we didn't get any pursuit. I don't know maybe I should have gone for the pitch man." This was one loss Nebraska's All-Big Eight defensive back and three-year starter was taking personally.

He shouldn't have. If Jeff Quinn had seen Gary so subdued and speaking so softly, Nebraska's senior quarterback might have consoled him. "It wasn't anybody's fault," Quinn said. "Our defense didn't beat us. We should have had more points today.

We played the first five minutes of the first quarter and five or 10 minutes of the second half." In between, OU's defense shut down NU's options and the result left the Cornhuskers looking like a team from a different world than their first 10 games of the season. "I knew they'd be quick, but I didnt realize they'd be this quick," Quinn said. "Without George Cumby, See NEBRASKA on PogeSD By Randy York Staff Sports Writer All the philosophy in the world didn't help Derrie Nelson Saturday. Nebraska's ail-American defensive end felt more like a black eye than a Black Shirt. "We should have had 'em.

We should have beaten 'em. The offense put it in our book and we let 'em down," Nelson said after the third-ranked Cornhusk-ers lost to ninth-ranked Oklahoma, 21-17, in the last 56 seconds. "We played well, but they played better one play better," Nelson said. "In this game, that's what it takes." Nelson, of course, had reduced everything to its lowest terms. He was right, but only to a point.

The Black Shirts had played too well to absorb all the blame for Nebraska's ninth loss to Oklahoma in the team's last 10 meetings. They were especially superb in the second half. OU managed only five first downs and 84 yards rushing on 26 carries after intermission. But 43 of them came on a play that will become almost as well remembered in Nebraska as the famous flea-flicker four years earlier. Second and four on OU's 43-yard line and less than two minutes remaining Buster Rhymes around right end on a pitch play for 43 yards.

"I could see it. I could see all of it I was running right behind him," Nelson said, "but I couldnt catch him. I could feel my hamstring tightening up. Maybe if I'd been healthy See OKLAHOMA on Page 3D inside How AP's top 20 fared Saturday's college football games: Bond's worries slip away with TD pass UCLA 20, VSC 1 7 BYU 56, Utah 6 Page9D Page9D Michigan 9, Ohio St. 3 Mizzou 31, Kansas Page9D Page 3D Baylor 16, Texas 1SU 23, OSU21 Page 1 Page 5D SMU 31, Arkansas 7 Clemson 27, S.

Car. 6 Page 1 Page 9D KSU N.D. 24, Air Force 10 Page 5D Page 9D Next week's opponent 1. Georgia (10-0) Idle Georgia Tech 2. Notre Dome (MM) def.

Air Force, 24-10 idle 3. Florida State (9-1) idle idle 4. Nebraska (9-2) lost to Oklahoma, 21-17 season completed 5. Ohio State (9-2) lost to Michigan, 9-3 season completed 6. Pittsburgh (9-1 idle at Penn State 7.

Penn State (9-1) Idle Pitt 8. Alabama (8-2) idle Auburn 9. Oklahoma (8-2) def. Nebraska, 21-17 Oklahoma State 10. Michigan (9-2) def.

Ohio State, 9-3 season completed 11. Baylor (10-1) def. Texas, 16 0 season completed 12. So. California (7-2-1) lost to UCLA, 20-17.

idle 13. Brlghom Young (10-1) def. Utah, 54-6 at Nevada-Las Vegas 14. South Carolina (8-3) lost Clemson, 27-6 season completed 15. North Carolina (10-1) def.

Duke, 44-21 season completed 16. Washington (9-2) def. Washington State, 30-23 season completed 17. Mississippi State (9-2) def. Mississippi, 19-14 season completed 18.

UCLA (8-2) def. USC. 20-17 Oregon State 19. Florida (7-2) Idle Miami, Fla. 20.

Texas (7-3) lost to Baylor, 164 Texas earlier in the day. Oklahoma must beat Oklahoma State next week to gain an Orange Bowl berth opposite Florida State, a circumstance that would send Nebraska against the Bulldogs at El Paso, Texas. In other Southeast Conference games, Tennessee slaughtered Kentucky, 45-14, Vanderbilt hit 31 29, and LSU topped Tulane.24-7. Bond said Young was running a stop route about 12 yards deep. "He just found a hole and busted it," Bond said.

"It was a great team effort, a lot of great blocking and a lot of great catching." Coach Emory Bellard of State said, "the thing I most admire about him (Bond) is that he will compete. He has done really well for a young See SEC on Poge9D From Newt Wires "I was worried, but I knew we could do it," said freshman quarterback John Bond of 17th-ranked Mississippi State when his team faced a 14-13 deficit with only 8:20 remaining in Saturday's Southeastern Conference football battle with arch-rival Mississippi. The Sun Bowl-bound Bulldogs did it Bond, who accounted for more than 300 yards, connected with Glen Young on a 54-yard pass play that carried to the Ole Miss 10 where Michael Haddix skirted left end for a touchdown with 7:40 left in the game and a 19-14 victory. State's Dec 27 Sun Bowl opponent remained in doubt after Oklahoma upset Nebraska, 21-17, to clinch a share of the Big 8 Conference title Sports Also in today's sports section: Kearney tournament DePaul wins Page 2D Sunday Page 9D Page 2F Page 8D Bowling news Outdoor news boys, 3 p.m., fQ 33) Nebraska vs. Oklahoma, 3:30 P.m., GD Michigan vs.

Ohio State, 7 p.m., GD Harden Fry, 11 p.m., Arkansas vs. SMU, 1 1 p.m., GD Houston vs. Texas Tech, GD Specials Snorts Nebraska: Nebraska High School Volleyball championships, 2 p.m., (Q State gymnastics Page 2D Shero fired Pages 9D Football Indiono vs. Purdue, 7 a.m., (XI CFL Grey Cup Preview, 10:30 a.m., 3) NFL Today, 11 :30 a.m., 3D NFL regional coverage, noon, Detroit Lions vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, noon, 00(D) CFL Grey Cup championships, noon, CD Washington Redskins vs.

Dallas Cow If r----a.