The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 37

HORSE RACING NORTH JERSEY SPORTS WEATHER THE RECORD MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 1994 SECTION Doubting the defense Giants mulling changes By VINNY DiTRANI Staff Writer EAST RUTHERFORD -Maybe all those defensive mistakes aren't correctable after all. Maybe the Giants need some new and different bodies in their defense, which has been riddled for most of the preseason, including Saturday night's 27-21 loss to a questionable Chicago Bears attack that rivaled the vintage San Francisco 49ers for one night. "We're certainly going to look to see if we can make some moves to get better," Giants head coach Dan Reeves said Sunday after watching the tapes of the defense's latest debacle. "We're in the process of doing that now. There may be some changes made." Reeves added, however, that the major problem on defense continues to be mistakes like penalties, the defensive showing so far.

"Last year when we started the season, we didn't exactly come out like gangbusters on defense," he said. "We played teams like the Bears, Rams, and Bucs who were having trouble on offense at the time. So we got off to a 3-0 start and the defense appeared to be playing well when we really weren't. But the guys did get to build their confidence from that. "I'm not saying as a unit we are where we were a year ago at this time.

We've lost a lot of experience. But we did have a similar experience going into last year." After meeting the Eagles, the See GIANTS Page S-6 Treadwell may be back, s-6 Jets won't look for help, s-6 faulty techniques, and missed tackles. "The defense now has to come together," he said, looking ahead to the regular-season opener Sunday against Philadelphia. "There should be no excuses now. There is no excuse for someone out there now not knowing what he should be doing." The switch from the longtime 3-4 front to the 4-3 has not been as easy as expected and has created gaps along the defensive front.

A week ago the Jets' Johnny Johnson hurt the Giants with cutback runs. Saturday night was more straight-ahead, pick-a-hole pops by Tim Worley and former Giant Lewis Tillman that splintered a defense that hardly appears ready to start the regular season. "The disheartening thing," defensive coordinator Mike Nolan said, "is we preached correcting the mistakes all week, we had a good week of practice, and then we get into the game and commit the same mistakes all over again. You can't just say you are going to be a better team the next week and automatically be a better team the next week. "That's not the correction.

The correction is to go out and bust your butts to make sure it doesn't happen again. That's the correction." Nolan, who implemented his aggressive 3-4 system into a basically veteran defense last year, does offer some hope to those like Reeves who are concerned with ASSOCIATED PRESS Bears wide receiver Jeff Graham holding on to the ball for touchdown catch Saturday despite the hit applied by Giants safety John Booty. Not exactly a classic All Nebraska IK" 1 "9H tw VP TTT lllll In i Minii i i ii i wkx a4B i vWivNFH Cornhuskers rush to prove dominance No wonder it's a blowout By JOHN ROWE Staff Writer EAST RUTHERFORD This was a classic in name only. Nebraska's 31-0 domination of West Virginia in Kickoff Classic XII was more befitting a Cornhuskers rout on a cold November Saturday in Lincoln than a late August Sunday at Giants Stadium, with a national television audience watching. Instead of the Mountaineers, that could have been Kansas State on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

Kickoff Nebraska 31 W. Virginia 0 EAST RUTHERFORD If there were more coaches like Tom Osborne in this country, the Kickoff Not-Quite-Classic would be a pretty good college football game. It's now three trips to Giants Stadium and three victories for Osborne's Nebraska Cornhuskers. Both of those totals are records for the 12-year-old Not-Quite-Classic, and neither one is going to be broken. Besides Osborne, only two other coaches Penn State's Joe Paterno and Iowa's Hayden Fry have been willing to bring their teams here more than once.

Paterno came twice, to the inaugural game in 1983, which he lost to Osborne, 44-6, and to Kickoff IX three years ago, when he walloped Georgia Tech, 34-22. Fry was a loser in both of the Hawkeyes' appearances. You can argue long and hard about whether the game should be played at all. It takes place before the start of classes, far away from the campuses of the schools involved. The prime reason maybe the only reason for holding it is to generate money for the participants, for television, and for the Meadowlands.

And other than when Notre Dame or Penn State shows up, the game has virtually no local interest. But none of that matters. The game is scheduled, it's going to be played somewhere, and Giants Stadium makes as good a television studio as anywhere else. The only question is, does anyone have the nerve to come? Osborne has the nerve. "We've never backed off from it," he said after presiding over the 31-0 vivisection of West Virginia, which had as much business being See CELIZIC Page S-2 Or Missouri.

Or Oklahoma State. "We thought we would play well and we did," said Nebraska defensive tackle Terry Connealy. "I think we've got the potential to be a great football team." But it was hard to tell against a West Virginia team stripped by graduation losses. "Personally," frustrated Mountaineers coach Don Nehlen said, "I just want to get out of here." Good idea. All West Virginia got out of this mismatch was a big paycheck.

And a lot of punishment. Had Nebraska not turned the ball over five times, it probably would have surpassed Florida State's 42-0 not-so-classic rout of Kansas last year that kick -started the Seminoles' national championship run. The statistics were more one-sided than the score: Nebraska rolled up 468 total yards to West Virginia's 89 (82 in the final quarter). The output was the lowest by the Mountaineers in Neh-len's 16 years in Morgantown and the first time they were shut out in 84 games. See KICKOFF Page S-2 Frazier' jump on Heisman.

S-2 THOMAS E. FRANKLINSTAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Nebraska's Reggie Baul celebrating his 12-yard reception for a quarter of Kickoff Classic XII on Sunday at Giants Stadium. Baul touchdown from quarterback Tommie Frazier in the second led the Cornhuskers' receivers with three catches for 46 yards. Madison Square Garden has new owners Rangers, Knicks, cable network part of deal By RICHARD PYLE The Associated Press NEW YORK A partnership of Cablevision Systems Inc. and ITT Corp.

closed a $1,075 billion deal Sunday to buy Madison Square Garden, its cable television network, and resident sports teams the Knicks and Rangers. The deal, reported in the works for days, was announced at a joint news conference with Viacom whose chairman, Sumner Redstone, said he had decided to unload the landmark sports arena and its related properties as part of an effort to cut his company's debt. The deal includes the sports arena; The Paramount, the adjoining theater; the professional basketball and hockey teams, and the MSG network, which broadcasts those teams' games, plus Yankees baseball, boxing, and other events. been to "give the public more access to sports and at more affordable prices." Gov. Mario Cuomo praised the deal as beneficial to the city's sports fans and "another thrust in an upward direction for the economy." Cuomo lauded ITT as one company that "has never asked us for anything" in the way of concessions to remain in New York.

Viacom had acquired the Garden when it purchased Paramount Communications for $9.7 billion earlier this year. Dolan, alluding to the fact that the Rangers won the Stanley Cup and the Knicks were runners-up in the NBA, said it was "certainly the briefest and most successful ownership in the history of sports." But Redstone said Viacom's higher priority was the reduction of its corporate debt. "The sale of Madison Square Garden is a signifi- See MSG Page S-6 Company officials said the sale was closed at 4 a.m. Saturday after Cablevision and ITT agreed to add $10 million each to their earlier bid of $1,055 billion. That wiped out the only other bidder, Liberty Media, which had offered an even $1 billion.

Redstone said the deal was in doubt until the partnership added the final amount to reach $1,075 billion, a figure from which he had refused to budge. "They had a very aggressive competition and they knew that if they wanted it, that's what they were going to pay," Redstone said, Cablevision chairman Charles Do lan and Rand Araskog, chairman, president, and chief executive of ITT, sought to dispel suggestions that their acquisition would lead to an increase in seat prices or TV cable charges. They also said the current management of the Knicks and the NHL champion Rangers will remain in place. "Happy fans, a happy press, and a successful team go together," said Araskog. "We think the Knicks and Rangers are superbly managed and have outstanding talent.

We will leave it to the Do lan said he wanted to make use of fiber optics and other new technology to increase the flexibility of what the MSG sports network can offer. "We want every fan to be able to see any game, any time. Sports is more fun and more affordable when it's widely shared," Dolan said "The era of television blackouts should be history." He said his company's experience for 30 years has.