A Bitter Harvest For The Sugar-bound Huskers

Skill and brawn, however, were not left to do everything by Nebraska; superstition has its semiserious place. The football coaches were careful to repeat previously successful rituals. Two nights before the game—it had to be two—Devaney and several of his assistants met with friends at the Elks Club in Lincoln to consume chicken-liver hors d'oeuvres. Later, with their wives, they met in Line Coach George Kelly's basement for cocktails, turkey and ham sandwiches and pumpkin-cream pie. Nor was the lucky-penny board neglected. The first lucky penny was found before a 1962 victory, and there had been 31 pennies since, plus some dimes and a brass button, all now taped to a piece of cardboard and taken to all games. The night before the Oklahoma game a member of the Nebraska staff found a battered penny in the hotel parking lot.

Oklahoma had no good-luck charms to speak of, but it did have the lean, mean look of a half-starved guerrilla band. Coach Jim Mackenzie worked his players so hard last spring that collectively they lost 1,437 pounds in seven weeks, and no one quit or died of malnutrition. The skinny Sooners started with four straight victories, but Notre Dame took them apart in the fifth game 38-0. Still, Mackenzie said, they worked themselves like galley slaves in practice the following week. And they labored just as hard after close, deflating losses to Colorado and Missouri.

On Thanksgiving afternoon the stands were full of Nebraskans who had forsaken TV and turkey and traveled 450 miles to witness the hoped-for 10th straight win. They were decked out in red hats, red socks, red dresses and red everything else, including red faces after the first play of the game. Oklahoma's Eddie Hinton returned the kickoff 59 yards, but a fumble on the second play from scrimmage killed that threat. Early in the second quarter Nebraska ended a drive from its own nine with a 28-yard Larry Wachholtz field goal that just dribbled over the crossbar. Then it was Oklahoma's turn. The Sooners went ahead 7-3 on a 48-yard touchdown pass from Bob Warmack to Hinton, who made a fine leaping catch, and Mike Vachon's extra-point kick. Throughout, Oklahoma's offensive linemen were rudely rejecting the attempts of Wayne Meylan (or anyone else) to get into their backfield. Often they were double-teaming Meylan.

Nebraska finally put together a complete drive in the third quarter, moving 80 yards in 13 plays for a touchdown, but a bad pass from center enabled Sooner Bob Stephenson to block Wachholtz' extra-point try. Nebraska 9, Oklahoma 7. An Oklahoma field goal would win the game. The team got close enough early in the fourth period, but Mike Vachon's 23-yard boot was wide to the left, and he went back to the sideline looking for a suicide pistol. Coach Mackenzie told him, "Forget it! We'll give you another chance."

Mackenzie was almost wrong, but, on a gutty drive from their own 24, the Sooners took the ball deep into Nebraska territory. Three times on the drive they faced long yardage on third down, and three times they made it. With 48 seconds left Vachon got his other chance. His aim was true this time. He kicked the ball through the goalposts from the 11-yard line. The Okies led 10-9. As it had done so often this season, Nebraska came straight back upfield, but the drive, like three others this day, ended ignominiously, this time with an interception. The loss was the third in three tries against three different coaches for Bob Devaney's teams at Norman.

Among Oklahomans, after the upset, there was happy chatter about a possible postseason excursion of their own. It is not to be, unfortunately, and there is still Oklahoma State to play. But Mackenzie was not thinking of other games. "Fifty-four million people watchin' this one," he said, "and it's gettin' near recruitin' time."

In the Cornhusker dressing room a disappointed New Orleans representative insisted, "As far as I'm concerned, they're still Big Eight champions, and they'll be received as well as ever." He gave Devaney a Sugar Bowl invitation engraved in metal and mounted on polished wood. The original idea was to make the presentation before a joyous, and undefeated, Nebraska squad. But as their coach accepted the plaque, the tired, gloomy athletes did not even look around.