Lincoln Journal Star from Lincoln, Nebraska • Page 9

ASV Field Goal Kicks Devil Out of NU Bowl Streak Next For Kush After Best Win Stop By Randy York Tempe, Ariz. Just when he sees the best part of heaven in 18 years as Arizona State's head football coach, what does Frank Kush do? He goes to Purgatory. Purgatory, that is. Kush and his family are packing their bags and heading for the ski slopes this weekend to celebrate the Sun Devils' 17-14 Fiesta Bowl triumph over Nebraska. Even though Kush said he wanted a chance to enjoy what he called "the win which has to stand on top of my 18 years here," Sun Devil Stadium clockkeepers thought otherwise.

An hour after the game, the Sun Devils' modern Scoreboard had ASU lit up on the home side and UCLA on the visitors' side. Arizona State returns 15 starters next fall, nine on offense and six on defense. UCLA and California are ASU's first two 1976 opponents. Kush figures the win over Nebraska "should give us the national recognition our fans keep screaming for. It gives you an opportunity to compare.

I'm damn glad Bear Bryant made his decision. You know, I ought to send the Bear a telegram for today." Despite the Sun Devils' 12th straight win this season, Kush admitted surprise. "This put us'on a level playing with anyone," he said, "but, believe me, this is not our most talented Arizona State team. Freddie Williams is our only great running back. We're used to more." Kush thought the Fiesta Bowl represented "a typical way for we Polish people to celebrate Christmas a day late." Better Known When the ASU coach hits the Colorado ski slopes this weekend, he may not be the best known.

The 20 million national television viewers may well remember Dan Kush's name better. Dan, the Sun Devils' junior record-setting placekicker, is Frank's son. He kicked field goals of 27, 33 and 29 yards against the Cornhuskers, the last with 4:50 remaining to break a 14-14 tie. "He deserves ttoe recognition," Frank said. "He's not a talented guy, but he works at it." Oh, how he must work at it.

"Danny and I started working and kicking when he was a freshman at Tempe High School," ASU kicking coach Craig Millbranth pointed out. "I bet when he first started in high school, he couldn't kick the ball more than five or 10 yards. I'm serious," said Millbranth. "But he just kept working and working and adding yards every year. "He's very cool," added Millbranth.

"He's like his dad -ice water in his veins. It must run in the family. He pulled a hamstring in the Utah game and was out for three weeks. But, on sheer guts and courage, he came back." Similar courage played a major role in Friday's upset, which fooled the bookmakers, according to Kush. ifinroln 30urnal SPORTS Saturday, Dec.

27,1975 9 "It was especially evident on defense," he said. "Emotion means so much on defense and we had a ton of it today. It doesn't help you on offense because you have to be cool." Sun Devil linebacker Larry Gordon was among the most emotional, but he also lost his cool. He was ejected from the game with Nebraska's all- American center, Rik Bonness, early in the fourth quarter when the pair squared off in a fistfight. Although he missed the final 10:35, Gordon had inflicted enough damage to earn the game's most valuable, defensive player award.

He finished with six unassisted tackles, six assists and an interception. "Bonness gave me a forearm and I wasn't going to take him giving me that," Gordon said. "I didn't like leaving the game, but I think it fired us up even more." Fullback Freddie Williams, who rushed for 111 yards on 18 carries, said "our offensive line really fired out to get us all those yards. But to hell with the yards. We're No.

1. We beat Nebraska. THE Nebraska Comhuskers." Wild Fans Second team quarterback Fred Mortensen had more trouble with ASU fans than he did with Nebraska. By the time he reached the lockerroom, Mortensen wore only shoulder pads. "They ripped off my entire iearaway jersey," he said, "but I ddn't care.

I got to play and we won. That's all that matters." Mortensen got a chance to redeem himself'a minute into the fourth quarter when starting quarterback Dennis Sproul pinched a nerve iriTiis left elbow. Same Play Mortensen promptly threw a nine-yard touchdown pass to split end John Jefferson anJ the conversion pass to wingback Lam' Mucker to tie the game at 14-14. "Both passes were the exact same play," Mortensen said. "I just fake into, the line, read the strong safety and pick the receiver." Jefferson, the game's outstanding offensive player with eight catches for 113 yards, noted that "we've been put down by a lot of people.

"But we knew we could win," he said. "We were well prepared. Nebraska's a great football team, but the Western Athletic Conference is underrated." Not anymore. When the Kush family returns from its ski trip to Purgatory, the Sun Devils will be on top. No more in between stuff for them.

Jayhawks Thumped By Pitt, 33-19 First downs Rushes-yards Passing yards Return yards Passes Punts Fumbles-lost Penalties-yards Pit 16 53372 60 110 7-13-2 1-Q 10-95 Kan 19 67-332 76 60 4-12-1 6-2 5-25 El Paso, Tex. (AP) Football coaches have been saying for years that teams don't win or lose games on one play, but the opposing coaches in the 41st annual Sun Bowl agree that one play in that game was certainly a decisive factor. The play came early in the first quarter when Kansas Coach Bud Moore's Jayhawks were driving deep inside the territory of Pittsburgh Coach Johnny Majors' Panthers. The Jayhawks had marched from their own 20 to the Panther 17-yard-line where they faced a fourth down situation with only inches needed to keep the drive alive. Quarterback Nolan Cromwell tried for the first down, but was thrown back by the Pitt defensive line and the Panthers took over.

Four plays later, Pitt fullback Elliott Walker took a pitch from Robert Haygood and swept around right end 60 yards to paydirt. That was the game's first score and Pitt went on to post a 33-19 triumph Friday for its first bowl victory in 39 years. "I'd say that was the biggest play of the game," Majors said of the first quarter stand by his defensive unit. Coach Moore concurred, saying, "That was very definitely a big play. We were moving the ball very well up to that time.

Haygood, a junior quarterback, Walker, a sophomore fullback, and Tony Dorsett, a junior tailback, sparked the Panthers to two more first half touchdowns that gave Pitt a 19-0 halftime advantage that Kansas could not overcome. Haygood finished with 101 yards rushing and passed for 60 more, including a touchdown. ASU Flrjtdowni 20 RushtJ-yards 37-162 5M9t Passing yards 173 Return yards 0 20 Passts 15-37-2 12-23-1 Pants FumblM-loit 2-2 Penalties-yards 6-54 4-38 By Virgil Parker Journal Sports Editor Talk about controversy. Fiesta Bowl had enough to keep the Hot Stove League warm the rest of the winter. But regardless of what the second-guessers or the complainers say, the result will stand.

Arizona State played a perfect game. Nebraska didn't. The result was a 17-14 upset victory for the Sun Devils, which sent a highly-partisan record crowd of 51,396 home in a delirious daze and about 10,000 red-clad Husker fans mumbling to themselves. What they were mumbling Pittsburgh Kansas 7 12 0 14-33 0 Pitt-Walker 60 run (Long kick) Pltt-Dorsett 8 run (kick failed) Pltt-Dorsett 2 run (pass (ailed) Kan-Smith 55 run (Swift kick) Pitt-Walker 2 run (Long kick) Kan-Smith 17 run (kick failed) Pitt-Jones 7 pass from Haygood (Long kick) Kan-Sharp 36 pass' from McMlchael (run failed) about was the sudden switch of quarterbacks by Cornhusker coach Tom Osborne from starter Vince Ferragamo to Terry Luck. Ferragamo, who had started the previous seven games, saw action for just three plays.

After two running plays gained just four yards and his third-down pass was intercepted, the California transfer spent the rest of the afternoon on the bench. "Vince seemed a little nervous before the game and then had the interception," Osborne explained. "Terry really practiced better throughout the past week. I thought Terry could do, the job and I think he played fairly well." And he did. But the Huskers were plagued by errors and mistakes and poor field position as Arizona State claimed the narrow win.

The loss snapped a six-game Hot Arizona State Darkens Buskers 9 Sunshine, 17-14 bowl winning streak for the Buskers and spoiled chances for a national record of seven bowl wins in a row. Nebraska currently shares the record with Georgia Tech. Besides the bewilderment over the sudden change of quarterbacks, Nebraska fans grumbled over what appeared to be the actions uf a friendly timekeeper which enabled ASU to score a field goal at the gun to end the first half. The Sun Devils ran 10 plays in the last 87 seconds of the half, including four pass completions. The biggest controversy centered around the fact that on one series out of field goal range at the Nebraska 34 -Arizona State managed three incomplete passes in SECONDS.

Just two seconds clicked off the clock on two of the plays -three on the other. As a result, there was one second on the clock when ASU coach Frank Kush's son Dan trotted on to boot a 33-yard field goal the difference in the final score. Kush had three fielders on the day. The first was a 27-yarder following the interception of the Ferragamo pass. After Luck took over the Huskers stopped themselves twice because of penalties, but on the first possession of the second quarter he engineered a 73- yard drive to give the Huskers a 7-3 advantage.

The controversial Kush field goal cut the margin to 7-6 at intermission, but Luck directed a 91-yard march on the first NU possession of the second half to push the Huskers out in front, But Nebraska only had the ball four more times the rest of the game, and two of those times started out on its own four and one-vard lines. Husker quarterback Terry Luck (11) is jolted near the goal line by an unidentified Arizona State defender. Also tripping Luck up is safetyman Alex Stencel (43). Luck STAFF PHOTO BY WEB RAY moved to the Sun Devils' two-yard line on this carry and two plays later Monte Anthony scored the first of two Nebraska touchdowns. Huskers Face Kansas Tonight Kansas State, Mizzou Win KANSAS CITY (AP) Kansas State and Missouri, Monday night's first semifinal foes, will watch from the wings tonight while Colorado battles Oklahoma and Kansas collides with Nebraska in concluding first round games of the Big Eight Conference preseason basketball tournament.

K-State and the Tigers won their opening tests Friday night. The Wildcats downed winless Iowa State 81-67, and Missouri barely got by stubborn Oklahoma State 81-79. Colorado and Oklahoma are both 2-5 and Kansas and Nebraska both 5-3. The winners will tangle in the second half of Monday night's semifinals. The Wildcats, 7-2, built a 32-12 lead against Iowa State, loser of eight straight games, but blew most of it by halftime when they held only a 38-35 edge, thanks to Mike Evans' shot at the buzzer.

After the half, K-State rolled up an 11-pomt bulge and had no trouble the rest of the way. "I can't explain it," said Wildcat Coach Jack Hartman of the shifting momentum. "Momentum is a strange thing. Streaks like that happen quite a bit in basketball so it isn't that unusual, but you'd like to think you had a little control over it." Ken Trickey, the Iowa State coach, said his Cyclones "played a good ball game for about 35 minutes. Contrary to what some people think, I know what we're doing.

We re going to have a good basketball program at Iowa State." Chuckie Williams and Evans tired the Wildcats to victory. Williams made 24 points and Evans 19. Carl Gerlach contributed 17 rebounds to the Wildcat cause. Art Johnson, with 21 points, and Hercle Ivy, with 20. topped the Cyclones.

"I was appreciative of Iowa State because I knew it was 0-7 but a better club than that and I knew it could break out of it at any time," said Hartman. "On top ot that, I thought they might really get motivated by playing in a tournament and playing a conference member, he said. Hartman had reason for concern the first half. His team outscored Iowa State 22-2 at one spell and took a 32-12 lead but the Cyclones came back within one, 36-35, before falling behind 38-35 at the half. Kansas State, however, put the game away in the opening minutes of the second half, scoring 12 straight points after their 12-pomt streak and finished the game with 16 points and 10 rebounds.

"I was playing good defense and rebounding in the first half but vvasn scoring," said Winston. "I know I have to go out and play both ends for us to do well and that's what I did." Missouri led -Oklahoma State by five with two seconds left and almost wound up in overtime Scott Sims was called for a toul on Dave Kragel. who made both tree throws to cui the lead to three Huskers Return Tonight The Nebraska Corn- busker traveling party will return to Lincoln tonight in two separate groups. The first plane load is scheduled to land at 6 p.m. and the second chartered flight will arrive at approximately 11:30 p.m.

Lincoln time. Tiger coach Norm Stewart was called for a technical complaining about the foul and Oklahoma's State's Ron Daniel hit that tree throw to narrow the margin to two and give OSU the ball out of bounds. Kragel missed a desperation shot at the buzzer. "The technical was a poor play on my part," said Stewart, whose team had led by 13 at one point in the second half before OSU outscored it 16-4. Willie Smith took game honors with 23 points and nine rebounds for Missouri while Olus Holder led Oklahoma State with 21 points.

OKLAHOMA STATE (79) Holder 9 3-4 21, Threatt 6 13, Kragel 3 3-) 9, Daniel 2 67 10, Stevenson 7 2-2 16, Johnson 4 0-0 8, Rehng 0 2-2 2, Boeckman 3 0-0 0, Maughan 0 0 0 0 Totals 31 17-20 MISSOURI (81) Kennedy 6 3-6 15, Anderson 6 6-7 18, Ray 5 1-2 11, Smith 9 5-6 23, Currie 3 2-3 8, Gabon 0 0-0 0, Anderson 2 0-0 4, Sims 0 2-2 2 Totals 31 19-26 Halftime Missouri 43, Oklahoma State 33 Fouled out Holder, Anderson Total fouls Oklahoma State 25, Missouri 14 Technical Missouri Coach Stewart A 10,142 IOWA Johnso J1-3 21, Peake 0-0 2, smith 3 0 0 0 Ivy 10 0-2 20, Butkus 1 0-0 2, Benjamin 6 2-2 14, Murphy 00-00, Butler 30-06, Varley 0 2-2 2 Totals 31 5-9 KANSAS STATE (81) Winston 5 6-6 16, Noland 3 0 0 6 Ger lach 7 0-0 14, Williams 12 0-0 24, Evans 8 3-4 19, Dassie 1 0-0 2, Dorge 0 0-0 0, Frazier 00-00 Totals 36 9-10 Halftime Kansas State 38, Iowa S'ate 35 Total touls. Iowa State 17, Kansas State 15 Arizona State, which had lost 26 fumbles this fall, bobbled nary a one this afternoon. The Sun Devils had been intercepted 11 times. Though two Nebraska pass thefts were ASU's only errors, they actually worked to the winners' advantage. Both came near the goal line and resulted in the poor field position for the Huskers.

The Sun Devils couldn't have hoped for a couple of coffin -corner kicks to go out on the four and the one. ASU tied the score after the first of those deep interceptions. Unable to move, the Huskers punted out to midfield and seven plays later ASU split end John Jefferson who was named the game's outstanding offensive player after catching eight aerials for 113 yards, snared a 10- yarder for a touchdown. A two-point conversion pass knotted the count at 14-all. That set the stage for Kush's final field goal, a 29-yarder with five minutes left, which produced the final score.

Final Error Nebraska appeared to be moving to at least a tie on its final possession in the closing minutes until a last, fatal error sealed the Huskers' doom. Luck completed a couple of passes and John O'Leary scampered 10 yards on one carry and seven on another. The Huskers recorded four first downs in moving from their own 27 to the ASU 31. They were nearing field goal range. Briefly oh, so briefly -Nebraska had a fifth first down at the Arizona State 20.

Tony Davis caught a Luck pass high over his head. He took a step or two and wham! Tough Tony was smashed by ASU safety John Harris and the ball went sailing. Arizona State recovered with just a minute remaining and the game was over. "I had it," Davis recalled through his tears later. "I watched the ball all the way into my hands.

Maybe I should have put it away (cradled it in his arms) quicker. But I didn't have much time. It all seemed like slow motion All of a sudden I saw the ball just floating away." After a career filled with outstanding play, the one fumble spoiled a great Davis achievement. He became the alltime Nebraska rushing leader during the game. Davis rushed 60 yards to total 2,445 for his three years, 25 more than gained by Jeff Kinney (1969-71).

"It seemed hard to convince people of the fact," Osborne noted, "But Arizona State had a great football team They had a great defense and a better offense than even we (the coaches) expected." Bad Position The NU coach pointed to bad field position as causing much of the Nebraska woes, but added that "I was disappointed we didn't move the ball better. "One of the strong points this year was not making errors. Then we did against Oklahoma and it cost us that game. Now a couple of crucial mistakes in this one the opening interception and the final fumble lost this one." 1 The Nebraska dressing room was long faced, red-eyed and quiet. Husker athletic director Bob Devaney was a visitor, spending much of his time trying to console Davis.

"Nobody in the world could have held on to the ball he dropped, not the way he was hit," Devaney noted. "Tony played some damn good football for us over the years. He shouldn't blame himself for that one." Devaney watched a saddened Tom Osborne move slowly across the dressing room. "Coaching is a a profession," he noted. "When you win you're way up on top -when you lose you're down in the gutter.

There's no in between." Sports Briefs UPI TELEPHOTO Kansas State's Carl Gerlach (33) and Iowa State's Roman Butkus (14) chase a loose ball during action in the Big Eight Basketball Tournament. Tampa Will Be First in College Draft Pittsburgh (AP) The new Tampa Bay franchise won the drawing Saturday for first pick in the upcoming National Football League college draft. Tampa Bay participated in the drawing with Seattle, the NFL's other new franchise which will begin play in 1976. Seattle now gets first pick in a special expansion draft of NFL veterans which will be Friday, Jan. 23 in New Orleans.

The college draft will be held Feb. 34 in New York. Hugh Culverhouse, owner of Tampa Bay, gained the No. 1 pick by selecting out of a football helmet held by NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle. The drawing was held American Football playoff game.

before the Conference Herman Sarkowski, managing partner of the Seattle Seahawks, selected the other envelope in the helmet, entitling his team to the first pick in the veteran allocation draft. Football Two defensive line starters for the Florida Gators suffered ankle injuries during Friday's workout for the Monday night Gator Bowl clash against Maryland. Darrell Carpenter stepped in a practice field hole and Joe Allen tripped on a stairway at the motel. The playing status of both is uncertain. Oregon State's new football coach, Craig Fertig has named J.

K. McKay, son of lormer Southern Cal head coach John McKay, as an assistant in charge of the pass receivers. Former Washington Huskie star, Tony Kopay was also picked as an assistant. Dick Nolan has been fired as the head coach of the San Francisco 49'ers. Nolan coached the 49'ers for eight seasons.

Jackie Sherrill, one of Johnny Majors' assistants at Pittsburgh, waited until alter the Sun Bowl victory over Kansas to announce that he has taken the head a i i i a Washington State. Track and Field Former University of Kansas sprint ace, Mark Lutz will marry America's top middle distance female runner, Francie Larrieu, in mid-January. Both are now competing for the Pacific Coast Track Club. Miss Larrieu holds the world indoor mile record for women. IN FW SPA PERI SiFWSPAPFRf.