ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 15, 1996 TAG: 9601150107
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: IRVING, TEXAS
SOURCE: Associated Press
DALLAS RETURNS to the Super Bowl after a one-year absence with a 38-27 victory over Green Bay in the NFC championship game.
Despite a season of finger-pointing and second-guessing, the Dallas Cowboys are back in the Super Bowl thanks to the same names who put them there before - Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin.
Smith rushed for 150 yards and three touchdowns, and Aikman combined with Irvin for two passing touchdowns as the Cowboys beat the Green Bay Packers 38-27 on Sunday in the NFC championship game.
``This year was a tough year and a trying year,'' Aikman said. ``A lot of people didn't expect us to get this far.''
The victory put the Cowboys in the Super Bowl for the third time in four years and gave Barry Switzer a shot at his first NFL title as coach.
It wasn't that easy in a game in which the lead changed hands five times. Brett Favre, the league's Most Valuable Player during the regular season, completed only two of his first nine passes for Green Bay, but both were for touchdowns, keeping the Packers in the game in the first half.
The heat also was a factor in wearing down the Green Bay defense. It was 78 degrees at game time, 94 degrees warmer than on that fabled day at Lambeau Field in 1967 when Vince Lombardi's Packers beat Tom Landry's Cowboys to go to the second Super Bowl.
Some of the stars of that ``Ice Bowl'' game were on hand for the coin toss at this one - Ray Nitschke, Bart Starr and Willie Davis for the Packers and Lee Roy Jordan and Bob Hayes for the Cowboys.
But it was the stars of today who put Dallas into the NFL's title game against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Jan.28, the third time those two will have met in the Super Bowl.
``Our great players played great,'' Switzer said. ``Emmitt Smith made great plays.''
Pittsburgh won both previous meetings, in 1976 and 1978, and each team will be seeking its fifth Super Bowl victory - only San Francisco has as many.
The Cowboys, who were made 111/2-point favorites, also will be looking for their third title in four years and the NFC will seek its 12th consecutive Super Bowl victory.
Landry coached both those games against Pittsburgh, while Jimmy Johnson was Dallas' coach in the back-to-back Super Bowl triumphs in 1993-94.
Switzer, in his first year as Dallas' coach, lost to the 49ers in the NFC championship game last season, and his coaching has been criticized throughout this season - especially after a late-season loss to Philadelphia, in which the Cowboys failed to convert on fourth-and-one deep in their own territory.
That's been typical of Dallas' season. Times were not always happy at Valley Ranch as the Cowboys battled the Niners for NFC supremacy. Aikman and Switzer bickered briefly, and owner Jerry Jones and the league swapped multimillion-dollar lawsuits over licensing fees.
But in the postseason, Dallas has come up big - including another maligned Cowboy, Leon Lett, who had an interception to set up one touchdown and was in the Green Bay backfield all day.
Aikman completed 21 of 33 passes for 251 yards and Irvin caught seven for 100 yards and 2- and 4-yard touchdowns against the Packers.
But it was Smith's 5-yard touchdown run 2:36 into the final quarter at the end of a 90-yard drive that put the Cowboys ahead for good in a shootout in which bad blood between the two teams led to numerous penalties.
Then, cornerback Larry Brown, picked on all day by the Packers, made another big play, an interception after Green Bay seemed ready to go ahead again. That set up a 16-yard touchdown run by Smith as the Cowboys went up by 11 with the conversion kick.
In the end, the Dallas offense, and perhaps the warm weather, finally gave the Cowboys their seventh consecutive victory over the Packers.
``We had champagne to celebrate on the plane,'' said Mike Holmgren, Green Bay's coach. ``We'll still drink a toast to our team.''
The first half lasted almost two hours with a 10-minute delay after Gil Haskell, Green Bay's wide receivers coach, was knocked unconscious when he was hit by Robert Brooks out of bounds.
NOTE: Please see microfilm for scores.
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. AP. Emmitt Smith celebrates his 150-yard,by CNBthree-touchdown effort and the Cowboys' 38-27 victory over the
Packers. color. 2. Packers wide receiver Anthony Morgan can't bear
to watch the closing seconds of Green Bay's loss Sunday in the NFC
championship game.