The Daily Oklahoman from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma • 111

8 October 22, 1989 Section THE SUNDAY OKLAHOMAN Nebraska 48, Oklahoma State 23 NU's Pickens Lives Dream NU Cut Off OSU Ploy At the Pass STILLWATER Oklahoma State football coach Pat Jones and Nebraska coach Tom Osborne have been playing Bolt From Blue Bllndslded OSU By Mike Baldwin Staff Writer STILLWATER Quarterback Gerr Gdowski supplied a career-best performance but the play that turned Saturday's gam around was a blindside hit by Nebraska corner-back Bruce Pickens. Oklahoma State trailed 20-16 and was giving the fourth-ranked Cornhuskers all they wanted and more when Pickens sailed in from the left side to clobber OSU quarterback Mike Gundy. Pickens' monstrous hit and fumble recovery set up a short 27-yard scoring drive that opened the floodgates. Nebraska scored another TD 1:48 later and followed with a methodical 34-yard scoring drive to build a 41-16 cushion with 9:51 to play. "We just put that play in this week.

That kind of play is twice as good as an interception," Pickens said, smiling. "It's a dream play. You always have a chance for an interception, but you rarely get that kind of shot at a quarterback." The offensive hero was Gdowski, who rushed for 125 yards, a career high, and passed for 170, his second-best outing. The combined 295 yards mina games tne past several sea sons. In terms of wins and losses, Os borne pushed his personal record to 6-0 against Jones with a 48-23 victory over the Cowboys on Sat urday afternoon at Lewis Stadi urn.

But in terms of tryine to out guess each other, Osborne and Jones might be all tied up. "Yeah, we've played these little games over the years," Jones said. "Tom came up to me after the game and said, wasn't sure or total osense was also a if you'd use it again. You son of a gun, you did use it again. The subject in question is the Gdowski, a true senior from Fremont, a town of 20,000 located about 30 miles northwest of Omaha, has accounted for 1,286 yards of total offense and 15 TDs.

He has put up impressive cowboys delense. Players on OSU's defensive Staff Photo by Jim Argo Jay Fleischman, left, recovered for OSU. unit performed like a bunch of Nebraska quarterback Gerry Gdowski fumbles as he's hit by OSU's Stacey Satterwhlte I May field Hauls In Record 208 Yards earned run aver By Mac Bentley and John Rohde Staff Writers STILLWATER Oklahoma State numDers mat seem to go unnoticed. "I really don't care about the publicity, or anything," Gdowski said. "I just go out and try to help us win football games." OSU used what Nebraska coach Tom Osborne called a "cyclone blitz." As a result, Gdowski was forced to audible about "95 percent of foe time." "Today, we just took what they gave us.

When a team blitzes as much as they did, you have to pass," Gdowski said. "We had a pretty good idea what we could run. We've been working on it a little bit, and we kind of knew where we wanted to go. Sometimes it didn't work, but eventually we had some success." Skeptics have pointed to Nebraska's schedule, which has not featured a top-20 team. Gdowski and many of the Cornhuskers talked as if OSU's solid first-half showing were a wide receiver Curtis Mayfield.

the Cowboys' fastest player, burned Nebraska twice Saturday and picked up a school record in the process. He took a 65-yard touchdown nass from Mike Gundy in the first Deri- od and an 85-yard reception from Earl Wheeler in the fourth. For the Nebraska, the second-leading rushing team in the country, picked up 316 yards against the Pokes, 91 yards under its average. "Their offensive line comes off the ball extremely well, and they are very technically sound," said OSU tackle Stacey Satterwhlte. "The draw play was what killed us," said safety Jay Fleischman.

"(QB Gerry) Gdowski was better than I thought he would be. He made us miss a lot on the options with the Wheeler, a redshirt freshman, played much of the fourth quarter, completing three of 10 passes for 114 yards and a TD. The only other football action Wheeler has seen was one play against Oklahoma. In baseball, he was the bullpen OSU Notes six Big Eight records and picked up the total offense mark with the 65-yard pass to Mayfield. He now has 6,559 yards in his 39-game career, eclipsing the 6,459 yards gained by Missouri's Phil Bradley from 1977-80.

Moving up on the OSU tackling chart is linebacker Sim Drain III, The Stillwater senior was credited with 13 against the Huskers, moving him into fifth place on the OSU all-time list. On the interception in the end zone, with OSU trailing 20-16 in the second half, Gundy said "I should have thrown the ball out of bounds, hut I wanted to give Curtis a chance to catch it. We moved the ball on Nebraska as well as we ever age in 16 appearances. Cornerback Bruce Pickens said the Huskers were using single coverage against the Pokes. "We're always out to stop the run first," he sail "We came out a little flat but started picking it up.

"You could tell we were getting it together early in the second OSU safety Rod Smith deflected a third-down pass to force an early Nebraska field goal, then blocked a punt on the next possession. It was the first punt blocked by a Cowboy since David Bailey blocked a Tulsa punt in the 1987 season opener. O-State kicker Cary Blanchard hit field goals of 36, 31 and 38 yards for his third three-field goal game of the season. He's hit nine of his last 11 attempts and stands 15-of-21. he caught six passes for a school-record 208 yards.

The previous mark was the 181 yards Hermann Eben gained on 12 catches against Oklahoma in 1969. The 85-yarder tied the lomrest pass in OSU history. Eben hauled in an 85-yarder from Bob Cutburth against Kansas state in 1969. crazed loonies Saturday against the fourth-ranked Cornhuskers. Never being one who understood high-tech football, my explanation will be simple: Basically, OSU sent nine of its 11 players through any available gap NU's offensive line would offer.

Therefore, OSU cornerbacks Mike Clark and Joe King were left all by their lonesome to do their best to cover NU receivers one on one. "It got pretty scary out there sometimes," Clark said afterward. "It's like being on an island." The Cowboys didn't use this defensive scheme once or twice. In fact, OSU defensive coordinator Bill Miller guessed his squad blitzed 90 percent of the time. "1 would have guessed more than that," Jones said.

"There may have been two or three plays they didn't blitz," Osborne said. "Our approach was to haul off at 'em," said Miller, who won a conference title at Nevada-Reno six years ago while using the same type defense. Jones refers to the attack as "Tiger Blitz." Its origin goes back to the early 1980s, when the Missouri Tigers began using the same type approach against NU. Some very mediocre Missouri teams have given the Huskers fits the past several seasons. And for a while, OSU did the same Saturday afternoon in front of 40,000 fans.

The "Tiger Blitz" is geared at an offensive team with an anemic passing attack. Looking at the score and final stats (511 net yards and 26 first Gundy's record-setting season continued as well. He already owns tne foxes, earning a "This was a very good test for us, to have them come at us and them to score on us," Gdowski said. "I think it was a good situation for us to be in, being on the road. I think we rose to the occasion and played well." Osborne complimented Pat Jones' squad.

"Oklahoma State played awfully hard, inspired football, although their coaches might think differently. I think OSU's effort was as good as they've had all year. "Maybe after almost being stung by Kansas State in a close game last week they were ready to come out and play hard. Overall, I'm just glad to get out of here with a win. OSU From Paee IB proved to 7-0 with their 100th victory of the decade.

"At that point the game was kind of up for grabs." The Cowboys had narrowed a 20-13 half- time score to 20-16 by recovering a Nebraska fumble at the 21 on the second play of Coaches' Quotes tne nait, setting up a cary Blanchard field goal of 38 yards. The Poke defense then stomoed Nebraska Selected quotes from the coaches in Oklahoma State's 48-23 loss to Nebraska on Quarterback Gerry Gdowski, taking advantage of OSU's concentration on Clark, went 26 yards around the end to the 1-yard line, then scored two players later for a 27-16 lead with 4:57 remaining in the third period. Nebraska came right back on its next possession to drive 62 yards on four plays, with Gdowski hitting Jon Bostick for a 35-yard TD and a 34-16 lead at the 3:09 mark. A 45-yard punt return by Morgan Gregory set up a third TD on a five-play, 25-yard drive, with Gdowski again hitting Bostick, this time for 20 yards and a 41-16 lead just 1:17 into the final period. Oklahoma State, 2-5 and headed for Missouri this week, kept the game close by gambling defensively and putting together an all-out effort against Husker I-back Ken Clark, who finished with 85 yards on 21 carries but scored on 14- and 12-yard runs.

He departed with an aggravated leg injury in the fourth quarter. Gdowski, though, picked up 125 yards on 14 carries and recovered from a six-of-15, first-half passing performance to finish with lO-of-24 for 170. The Cowboys rushed for just 42 yards, which included 52 by tailback Vernon Brown and minus-19 by Gundy, who first met Pickens on an 8-yard sack in the first half. It may have been Gundy's finest day of the season. He hit 13 of 23 passes for 191 yards and became the Big Eight's all-time total offense leader.

His 65-yard TD pass to Curtis Mayfield in the second quarter was his longest completion since a 73-yarder to Hart Lee Dykes in the 1988 opener. His lone interception came on the one-handed grab by Cooper in the end zone, robbing the Pokes of a TD, after a first down, and after taking a punt, the Cowboys drove 51 yards to the Cornhusker 17-yard line before a Gundy pass was intercepted by Reggie Cooner in the end zone. Again the OSU defense forced a auick Tom Osborne, Nebraska: "Overall, I thought our defense coped well. Defensively, we didn't let them generate any running game. We let them get deep a couple of times, which disappointed us." Pat Jones, Oklahoma Stale: "I think basically we did some things that gave us an opportunity to win, though not enough to sustain us down the stretch." punt, but after Gundy sneaked two yards for a first down at the OSU 48.

he was crushed by Pickens on a cornerback blitz, the ball squirted free and the Pickens recovered all the way back at the OSU 27. Game Facts Gundy (Blanchard kick) Drive: 80 yards in 3 plays. 17-13 Clark 12 run (Barrios Scoreboard Nebraska 48, Oklahoma St. 23 Nebraska 10 10 14 14 -48 Oklahoma St 3 10 3 7 23 -23 NU-BSW They Scored Time Pastes Attempted nEutSSSlT 'l Avereoe Gain Per Play Return Yard 13 Lett t.j PeneHet. Yardi 440 tatercepHone, Kfetesft Returns, s-ms .5 Flower 1 10 IS 18 TOTALS 4 4 23.5 79 PuntRelurne a "1 11 "I TOTALS 11 45 Interceptions Returns a ass Nof Lon? 30 Totals i Oklahoma State kick) 4:30 3-0 downs surrendered), you think the Cowboys' defense did very little.

But for 2Vi quarters, NU looked baffled. "If you choose to do what we did, you've got to do it all four quarters doing it 2V4 doesn't work," Miller said, In time, the Huskers made adjustments in their passing attack, The run-crazed Huskers wound up attempting 29 passes easily their season high (previously 15). "I guarantee you they were drawing up some new plays out there," Miller said of NU. "Their gassing killed us in the second Jones wouldn't say whether the "Tiger Blitz" would make a repeat appearance in 1989. "It's a hit-and-miss thing," Jones said, "I think it's a lot of fun," said OSU linebacker Sim Drain, who was credited with 13 tackles.

Cowboys free safety Rod Smith had 14 tackles and one blocked punt. But OSU's defensive effort was not a family affair. With such a high-risk attack, all 11 players need to perform ovary down. Evidently, there were some no-shows. Rushing Drive: 71 yards in 9 plays.

Big Play: Gdowski 28 keeper to OSU 12. 20-13 Barrios 31 FG Drive: 67 yards in 11 Slays. Big Play: Bryan arpenter 22 screen pass from Gdowski 0:01 Individual Statistics Nebraska FIRST QUARTER Gregg Barrios 23 FG 9:61 Drive: 28 yards in 10 plays. Big Play: Gerry Gdowski 11 run to OSU 5. Cary Blanchard 36 FG 4:20 Drive: -2 yards in 4 plays.

Big Play: Rod Smith blocks Mike il 1 Palling Drive: 65 yards in 4 yards. Big Play: Clark 14 gain to OSU 35. FOURTH QUARTER 41-16 Bostick 20 pass from Gdowski (Barrios kick) 13:43 Drive: 25 yards in 5 plays. Big Play: Morgan Gregory 45 punt return to OSU 25. 41-23 Jarrod Green 12 pass from Earl Wheeler (Blanchard kick) 5:02 Drive: 97 yards in 2 plays.

Big Play: Mavfleld 85 pass from Wheeler to NU 12. 48-23 Loodls Flowers 52 run (Barrios kick) 3:36 Drive: 80 yards in 4 giays, Big Flay: Mike rant 25 pass to Bostick to NU 48, Attendance: 40,000 (est). Team Statistics Flowers sugge punt, recovers at NU 17. i 0 10 316 4 lit. Ydt.

TO 11 I 10-3 TOTALS HuSKw Ken Clark 14 run (Barrios kick) 3:03 Drive: 73 yards in 5 plays, Big Play: Gdowski 18 run to OSU 29. SECOND QUARTER Blanchard 31 FG 11:41 THIRD QUARTER 20-16 Blanchard 38 FG 13:45 Drive: 0 yards in 4 plays. Big Play: Bobby Raynor recovered Gdowski fumble at NU 21, 27-16 Gdowski 1 run (Barrios kick) 4:57 Drive: 27 yards in 3 plays, Big Play: Gundy fumble caused and re-coverd by Bruce Pickens, 94-16 Jon Bostick 35 pass from Gdowski (Barrios kick) 3:09 il ,11 Piss Receiving ill Field Qoali 5fe 111 Klekoff Returns iij a Punt Returns 1 11 "I'm proud of most of our de- I 10-8 PlrstDowm tense today. Minor said, "To Mat a team like Nebraska, you've got to give your all every )lay, A lot of our players could lay they did that today, But there ire some who couldn't." Drive: 65 yards in 15 Kays. Big Play: Curtis ayfleld 12 pass from Mike Gundy to NU 22, 10-13 Mayfield 65 pass from 1 1 Tl.