Hawk In A Cornfield

In the first quarter Kansas looked unstoppable as Douglass, Shanklin, Riggins & Co. did just about everything well. They scampered, plunged, passed and generally gained yardage almost at will as they rolled up seven first downs to the Cornhuskers' one. They failed in only one tiny detail: they did not score any points. Nebraska opponents have seen that happen to them before.

The Kansas offense was not completely to blame for this. At one point it was poised on Nebraska's 10 with fourth and a yard to go. You can bet that seven other Big Eight coaches would have gone for a field goal or at least run a power play to try for the first down. But not Pepper the Unexpectable. He calls every play from the sidelines, because, as he puts it, "It is better for team morale. If a boy thinks he isn't carrying enough, he gets mad at me, not at the quarterback."

This time Rodgers called a gambling roll-out pass. It flopped, and so did the Jayhawks for the rest of the half. On the other hand, Nebraska took heart. Early in the second quarter the Cornhuskers made three quick first downs, thanks to slashing rushes by Halfback Joe Orduna, a quick, well-balanced runner who got 98 yards in 21 carries for the day, and Fullback Dick Davis. Yet Nebraska could not score either until it got a break. With less than five minutes left in the half Shanklin, a gifted punt returner who has averaged 28.7 yards per runback, fumbled a kick on the Jayhawks' 28. Orduna recovered. On the next play Orduna hit the right side of the line, made an ad lib cutback across the middle and set out on a graceful, high-horsepower touchdown run. Nebraska missed the extra point, but a barrage of red balloons rose from the stadium like spatters of blood against the overcast, and the Jayhawks were little more than walking wounded for the moment.

For all his pregame somersaults and his enthusiasm for surprise, Pepper Rodgers is no devotee of slogans, sobs and heart-string tugging in the dressing room. Like many a genial Georgia boy who masks a will of steel and a spine of ice with an easygoing drawl and a comfortable wit, he believes that cold basics are the foundation for success. During the half he made no major changes in strategy, nor did he launch into any histrionics. "Good football is good preparation," he says. "If I had to make a lot of significant alterations in one 15-minute halftime, then our practices all season were wasted. I believe in proper execution, and you don't get that at half-time. I don't go for heat 'em up talks or signs either. My old coach at Tech, Bobby Dodd, used to say, 'If you send teams on the field with tears in their eyes, they can't see who to block.' And when I was with Tommy Prothro at UCLA I learned that gimmicks don't work in football—like they don't work in chess. Tommy and I played a lot of chess. I'd try the big play approach with him sometimes and sometimes I'd win. But not very often. He just played a patient—but not a predictable—game of chess and he'd tell me, 'Just remember it's best to win the sure way.' "

After their unsure performance in the second quarter, the Jayhawks seemed sharper in the second half. They blocked a Nebraska field-goal attempt after the kickoff, took the ball briefly and gave it up when Bill Bell punted 50 yards to Nebraska's one. Devaney then called his own version of the unexpected. At fourth and four on the Nebraska six he had Quarterback Ernie Sigler take the ball from center and stroll into the end zone for a deliberate safety.

"The score was 6-0," he explained, "and I figured a six-point lead was not much better than four, and with a guy as quick as Shanklin in the game, I wanted to kick the ball to him farther down-field than we could from behind the goal line."

Sure enough, Kansas did nothing after the free kick, but a couple of minutes later Nebraska's Dick Davis fumbled a pitchout from Sigler on his own 19, tried to pick it up and had it scooped out from under his hands by Kansas Linebacker Emery Hicks. Shanklin, John Riggins and Douglass took it from there to the one, and Shanklin hurdled in for the touchdown. The extra point made it 9-6 Kansas—the Jayhawks' first lead of the game.

It did not last long. Early in the fourth quarter Nebraska churned out a typical Cornhusker drive, slow and steady, using 10 plays to cover 48 yards before Orduna went over from the one. So now, with 9:58 to go in the game and trailing 13-9, Pepper Rodgers' 1968 Jayhawks faced a hitherto unknown (if not entirely unexpected) crisis: their 51-point-a-game offense was looking suspect, and the proof of their past—as well as their future—lay in how well Douglass could attack that Nebraska defense.

No chess master could have asked for more. Starting on their own 27 after the kickoff, the Jayhawks methodically, precisely and confidently fought their way up field. Douglass looked like a Starr as well as a star. He used 13 plays—all solid, none particularly spectacular—to reach Nebraska's one, then took it in himself with 4:09 left. The Kansas defense, anchored by Linebackers Hicks, Mickey Doyle and Pat Hutchens (who weighs 167 pounds), then smothered Nebraska inside its own 30, and after a last-hope, fourth-down charge by Orduna was stopped on the Cornhusker 26, Quarterback Douglass rambled 10 yards around left end for a final touchdown that made it 23-13.

Later, in the steaming locker room under Memorial Stadium, a delighted Pepper Rodgers seemed scarcely surprised at what his team had wrought. "They were all just magnificent," he said. Yes, Pepper, but what about the unexpected? What about that cool, methodical drive for the key touchdown? Where were the surprises? "Well, it's a matter of patterns," he said. "Eventually the pattern of the unexpected really becomes the expected because you do it so consistently. Then, of course, when you switch to the expected, it becomes the unexpected. Do you follow me?"