ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 22, 1996 TAG: 9612230137
SECTION: ORANGE BOWL PAGE: O-2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LINCOLN, NEB.
SOURCE: ERIC OLSON OMAHA WORLD-HERALD
THE CORNHUSKERS may not be playing for the national championship this season, but the Orange Bowl matchup with Virginia Tech still is a big game.
For years, Nebraska coach Tom Osborne has lamented what he perceived to be an all-or-nothing mentality in American sports. He even coined a term for it: ``number one-itis.''
The tell-tale sign of this condition, he would say, is the attitude that if you don't finish first, you're nothing. It's like the Nike ad that says an athlete doesn't win the silver medal, he or she loses the gold.
Well, if Osborne thought Huskers fans had a bad case of ``number one-itis'' in the days when he couldn't win the so-called ``big one,'' circa 1982 to 1993, he should check their vital signs now.
A two-loss season following perfect national championship campaigns in 1994 and '95 has the state of Nebraska ailing in epidemic proportions.
Radio call-in shows are jammed with the infected saying that since a shot at the national title fizzled with the 37-27 loss to Texas two weeks ago, why get excited about a ``consolation'' game against Virginia Tech on Dec. 31 in the FedEx Orange Bowl?
Tangible evidence of this shows up at the Nebraska box office, where only half of the school's 15,000-ticket allotment had been sold as of Thursday. A school ticket office spokesman said the other half probably will be donated to youth groups in South Florida.
Local stores report Cornhuskers merchandise is moving slowly. A year ago at this time, vendors couldn't keep up with the demand for items commemorating the Fiesta Bowl game against Florida.
How can there be such apathy for a Nebraska team that is 10-2 and ranked sixth in the major polls?
Osborne just scratches his head.
``There have been times in the history of this program where 10-2, playing in the Orange Bowl and being ranked fifth or sixth really was pretty good,'' Osborne said. ``But right now, because of what has happened in recent years, it isn't perceived as being all that good.
``Maybe 15 or 20 years from now, people will look back at the record and say that was pretty good.''
Osborne, who has a doctorate in educational psychology, said he's worried that ``number one-itis'' may spread to his players and negatively impact their play at Pro Player Stadium.
``The concern I have right now is, to some degree, how the players feel about themselves, how they feel about their season and what kind of focus and enthusiasm they have for this game,'' the coach said. ``What compounds this is we've played in three straight national championship games, and we had a chance to possibly play in a fourth. Now all of a sudden we aren't going to do that.''
According to Dr. Tom, the only sure way to fight off the bug is with a heavy dose of pride.
The players appear ready to take their medicine.
``We're disappointed we're not going for a national championship, but we're not going to kick back and take this game lightly,'' said center Aaron Taylor, an All-Big 12 Conference pick and second-team All-American. ``We can still finish fairly high, and that's what we want to do.''
And to think, when fall camp opened, the idea of the Huskers having trouble getting fired up for a bowl game would have been absurd. This, after all, was the program that had won 25 consecutive games.
Sure, All-American and Heisman Trophy runner-up Tommie Frazier wasn't going to be quarterbacking the team. And running back Lawrence Phillips, pushed by Osborne, took his game to the NFL after being a lightning rod for controversy following his assault on a former girlfriend.
But the Huskers would thrive, observers believed, not because of their offense - their traditional calling card - but because of their defense. No matter what happened, they could count on the ``Black Shirts'' to carry them all the way to New Orleans and the national title game in the Sugar Bowl.
But some not-so-funny things happened along the way, they got re-routed and their final destination ended up being Miami.
A week before the season opener, preseason All-America linebacker Terrell Farley was suspended for two games after being picked up for drunken driving.
Farley's absence didn't seem to have an effect against Michigan State. The defense and special teams dominated in a 55-14 victory. The offense played on a short field all day, so no one got a good read on Frazier's replacement, junior Scott Frost.
Frost's big-game inexperience showed up when the Huskers returned to the site where they had won the 1995 national title, Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz. Bothered by crowd noise, Frost went into a shell against Arizona State and generated virtually nothing in the 19-0 loss that represented the Cornhuskers' first regular-season shutout loss since Oklahoma beat them 27-0 in 1973.
The week after the Arizona State debacle, Osborne stood firmly behind Frost despite a public outcry.
``People can come down on his head all they want,'' Osborne said. ``But what else are you going to do? You might as well support the guy. He's the best we've got. Believe me, I know that. I may not know much, but I know that.''
Frost did show steady improvement running the offense. By the end of the season, he had completed 52 percent of his passes, a better mark than Frazier ever posted. Frost's touchdowns-to-interceptions ratio was 13 to 3.
After the loss to the Sun Devils, Nebraska outscored its next nine opponents 430-83. Meanwhile, the defense was establishing itself as one of the nation's best.
While Frost was finding himself at quarterback, freshman DeAngelo Evans established himself as one of the top first-year backs in school history, posting four 100-yard games and finishing with 776. Most of those yards came in relief of sophomore Ahman Green, the preseason magazine coverboy who suffered a turf-toe injury at midseason and later a stress fracture in his left foot.
Green, who ran for 917 yards, remains questionable for the Orange Bowl. Evans is the likely starter.
The defense, led by All-America rush end Grant Wistrom, ranked in the top five of the four major statistical categories for most of the season. A setback came Nov.20, when Farley was arrested a second time for drunken driving and kicked off the team.
In spite of that, the Huskers gutted out a 17-12 victory over Colorado to win the North Division of the Big 12 with an 8-0 mark. Eight days later, they would have to meet Texas in the Big 12's inaugural championship game in St.Louis.
Conditions were ripe for an upset. Unranked Texas was hot, having won four consecutive games and generating 500 yards or more in four of their final five regular-season games. Five days before the game, Longhorns quarterback James Brown predicted a Texas victory, perhaps by as many as three touchdowns - the same margin Nebraska was favored to win by.
In Lincoln, on the other hand, 20 to 25 players a day reported coming down with the flu and three of the top four I-backs were injured. And, as Evans said, the Sugar Bowl was on the team's mind.
``Everybody was looking forward,'' he said, ``and we kind of overlooked Texas a little bit, and they snuck up on us. I tip my hat to them. But I don't think we were there 100 percent mentally.''
Now all that is at stake for the Huskers is an 11-victory season - they've won no fewer than 11 since 1992 - and a shot at finishing in the top five for a school-record fourth consecutive year. Only Florida State, which has done it nine straight years, has placed in the top five more than Nebraska in the 1990s.
Senior rush end Jared Tomich didn't want to finish his career playing for anything less than a third consecutive national title, but he said that in some ways the Orange Bowl will be a nice diversion.
``We've been living with pressure the last four years,'' he said. ``Right now, it's not there. And, actually, it's kind of nice. We had a great run with the national titles, and hopefully we can go and finish on a good note.''
LENGTH: Long : 143 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA. The Nebraska defense is led byby CNBAll-America rush end Grant Wistrom. KEYWORDS: FOOTBALL