Boom And Doom

"Sure, I'm worried about Charles," Switzer said before the Nebraska game. "He's got to hold on to the ball, mainly, and not have any lost-yardage plays. But he had a great practice on Tuesday, and I told him, 'Play like that Saturday, and you'll stun the nation.' "

Thompson stunned most of Saturday's onlookers by refusing to take the snap on Oklahoma's first play from scrimmage. Too much noise from the Cornhusker fans, he told the ref. Bad move, right? A freshman mistake? Nope, said Thompson after the game. "I felt mature. I was using that first play to my advantage, to show the defense that I was in control. To show them this guy isn't as dumb as he looks."

For some reason the crowd, which is generally not polite to people wearing crimson and cream, quieted down, and Thompson looked pretty smart moving the Sooners close to the Nebraska goal line. Then Anderson fumbled, and Husker linebacker LeRoy Etienne, who led Nebraska with 15 tackles, recovered at his own eight. Fumbles are to the wishbone as blown engines are to Indy cars—the price of life in the fast lane. But most of the time Anderson looks as if he's trying out for the juggling team. He would fumble three times on the day, losing two, making a total of six such miscues in the last three games.

Two series later, Cornhusker I-back Keith Jones, who would finish with 94 yards on 15 carries, ran 25 yards around right end for a touchdown and a 7-0 Nebraska lead. The Memorial Stadium record crowd of 76,663—the 156th straight sellout in Lincoln—released its red balloons into the sky and whooped like ranchers at a cattle auction. Husker fans don't despise Oklahomans the way, say, Texans do, but they are a little sick of the Sooners' dominance in this annual affair—14 regular-season victories in the last 21 years, 11 in the last 15, and 3 in a row going into Saturday's game.

And there's the way Oklahoma has won. Six times since 1966 the Sooners have come from behind in the fourth quarter to triumph. And in four of those games (in '66, '76, '80 and '86), Oklahoma scored the clincher in the final minute. Last year the Sooners won 20-17 on a field goal with six seconds left. No wonder that among the hottest-selling pregame items in Lincoln were T-shirts inscribed SOONER BOOMER and showing a fierce, bare-chested Nebraska farmer cradling a grenade launcher.

So, even though the Cornhuskers got the early lead, it was no surprise that they were doomed. And this was true despite the fact that before this game everything seemed to be going Nebraska's way. Through scheduling sleight of hand, the Huskers had a week to rest up for Oklahoma (their game against Colorado had been moved from Nov. 14 to Nov. 28), and Nebraska had beaten its last two opponents by the combined score of 84-10. Oklahoma, meanwhile, was limping: Holieway and Carr were out, and even Switzer himself had a knee injury (a partial ligament tear suffered on Nov. 14, when Missouri linebacker Reggie Ballard crashed into him on the sideline). The Sooners were cast as unlikely underdogs, the oddsmakers having made the Cornhuskers as much as 7-point favorites.

Three days before the game, Switzer sat in his office and fairly bristled. "Why they think they're going to beat the snot out of us, I don't know," he said. "They ain't scored but three touchdowns in three years on our defense."

But Nebraska was talking as though the game were in the bag. Perhaps the boasting got out of hand because the normally staid Huskers are new to the ragging game. It took a preseason meeting between Nebraska's black players and the tightly wound Osborne to help free the Cornhuskers from old inhibitions. "We talked about emotion and how we want to show more of it on the field," says cornerback Charles Fryar of that get-together. "He encouraged us. Now we can high five, wear sweet tails [those little towels] and all that."

"I don't feel like we have to play our best game of the year to beat Oklahoma," said tight end Tom Banderas, getting into the swing of things.

"This is our house," said defensive end Broderick (Sandman) Thomas. "And only we have the key."