Football's Week

Finally the biggest moment arrived for Duda. It was fourth down and one at the Missouri 39. The Tigers pulled in tight. Duda faked beautifully to Solich in the middle—the whole stadium tackled Solich—but Duda kept the ball, shot to his left and around the corner. Absolutely no one was there. And Duda went scooting down the sideline for 38 yards to the Missouri one. A moment later Tatman scored his second touchdown.

"We were nervous at first," said Duda. "I've never seen us so tight. We just couldn't react. I wasn't really worried when we were behind 14-0, although Missouri was coming at us like they owned the field and everything on it. I just wanted us to unwind. When our line kicked out on that first touchdown drive, it steadied us."

All of these things combined to steady Nebraska, but Nebraska still was behind 14-13, because Larry Wachholtz, the placement kicker, was too deliberate on the second conversion try, and did a rare thing for him. He missed, wide. The score in fact remained that way until there were just 11 minutes left in the fourth quarter, and Nebraska was 60 yards away from doing something to change it. You sort of knew the Cornhuskers would, but even Bob Devaney must have started to wonder when. Well, it was time.

Ron Kirkland plowed for five yards, and Wilson made three, and Duda ran his keeper again for eight. Chuck Winters got five and Tatman plowed for four. Sheer power. But it was fourth and one at the Missouri 35 now, and right here Missouri helped a little to seal its doom, although Nebraska truly looked as if it were thundering along well enough to get there anyhow. What happened was that Winters made enough on a straight blast for the first down at the 32, but a Missouri lineman uttered a remark that an official did not like, and he tacked a 15-yard penalty on the end of Winters' run. So it was first down at the 17. Nebraska promptly crunched on to the nine, and here Larry Wachholtz got a chance to redeem himself. With fourth down and two at the nine and only 5:56 remaining, Devaney played percentages. Wachholtz kicked a 26-yard field goal into the grass horseshoe end of Missouri's Memorial Stadium, and a couple of Nebraska players on the sideline were actually seen to be jumping up and down joyously. "Why, they almost look like kids," said Publicity Man Don Bryant. "How 'bout that?"

The victory was probably the finest of Bob Devaney's sparkling career, the most crucial, the sweetest comeback, all of that. It practically insured him of his first perfect (10-0) record, a goal he has come very close to but never quite made. It seems now that an awful lot of huge Cornhuskers will have to be out sick for Nebraska to lose to any of its last three Big Eight rivals, Kansas, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma. Nebraska's talented middle guard, Walt Barnes, summed up the whole thing—the strength of both teams and the fierce game that it was—when he said, " Missouri almost blew us off the field all day. It's too bad a team like that has to lose."

He is right. Last Saturday the team from Missouri would not have lost to very many others.
—DAN JENKINS

THE MIDWEST

1. MICHIGAN STATE (7-0)
2. NEBRASKA (7-0)
3. NOTRE DAME (5-1)

Nebraska and MICHIGAN STATE will not meet this year, so nobody will ever know which is truly better. The Spartans, however, continued to look impressive as they trounced Northwestern 49-7. Their tough line tore into the Wildcat backs with such fury that Northwestern made only seven yards rushing. And once Quarterback Steve Juday got the State backs going, they minced Northwestern's defense into small, ineffective pieces. Fullback Bob Apisa crashed over for three touchdowns, Halfback Clinton Jones scored a couple and Northwestern's Alex Agase became a believer. "One of the finest teams I've ever seen," he said. "They're too big to run on, they don't give you much time to pass, and I've never seen backs run with such power."

Purdue, so high two weeks before, was all but dead as ILLINOIS throttled the Boilermakers 21-0. Coach Pete Elliott put his jolly green defenders into new alignments—like an eight-man rush and a special defense called Griese-Go—and they almost chased Bob Griese clear out of Memorial Stadium. Bill Harper, a blitzing 183-pound linebacker, hounded Griese for 74 yards in losses, and once End Bo Batchelder even stole the ball out of his hands. For points Quarterback Fred Custardo threw two touchdown passes, and Fullback Jim Grabowski, who gained 163 yards, plunged for a score. MICHIGAN, Illinois' next opponent, beat Wisconsin 50-14. For a change everything broke right for the hard-luck Wolverines. Quarterback Wally Gabler passed expertly, and Fullback Dave Fisher and Wing-back Carl Ward ran with equal felicity.