Getting By Nicely Without O.j.

"Now what do you think?"

"Aw," said the Nebraskan, "they've been practicing that all fall." That made it 14-0. USC had scored earlier when it had moved 80 yards, all on the ground. Davis had picked up 57 of them on five carries and then retired for a brief rest. His replacement, Mike Berry, ran one yard for the touchdown.

It looked good. Then Jones, scrambling under a heavy rush, slipped and fumbled, and Nebraska recovered on the USC 45. "Sophomores will do that," McKay would say later. "But I'd still rather have the superior sophomore to the just-average senior."

Nebraska's Van Brownson, himself a sophomore quarterback, moved his troops in to score in just five plays. The first was a pass interference play against USC—one of six called against the Trojans—and the last a two-yard keeper by Brownson.

Earlier in the week McKay had said something else. "I won't take Jimmy out of a ball game because he's not doing well. If he's thrown an interception or fumbled, I'm not going to panic and take him out."

He didn't, and was rewarded. On the second series after his fumble, as the first half was nearing the end, Jones had USC on the Nebraska four, third down. (A 20-yard pass, Jones to End Gary Orcutt, had helped move them there, but a check of the movies might show that Super J was two yards past the line when he released the ball.) McKay sent in a pass play. "Our quarterbacks call most of the plays," he said earlier. "And Jones will call most of his. But"—and he grinned—"we won't rely entirely on his memory in critical situations."

Jones dropped back and found his primary receiver, Dickerson, covered. He looked for his secondary, Chandler—covered. "Then I tried to run," he said later, "but their end slid over and contained me." Back into the middle he scooted. And there was Evans, in the center of the end zone, alone. Zap! Touchdown—21-7.

The Trojans scored again in the third quarter, on another one-yard run by Berry, making it 28-7, and even the Nebraska fans had begun to lose interest when McKay decided his secondary needed some experience with one-on-one pass coverage. And all those interference penalties began popping up.

Nebraska crept to 28-14 on two interference calls, for yards of 31 and five, and a 12-yard run by Jeff Kinney. And then bombed to 28-21 by capturing an onside kick, making a short march and a two-yard run by Jerry Tagge, another sophomore quarterback. "Everybody knew that kick was coming but the 11 guys we had on the field," said McKay. "We told them and they watched it. Then they came off and said, 'Yeah, you were right.' " But the rally unraveled when USC moved to the Nebraska 24 and Ron Ayala kicked a field goal.

Later in the dressing room Jones sat in the steamy semidarkness and said he was glad it was over. It was the back again. He could hardly bend. "It felt good early," he said, shaking his head, "but then it tightened up. It bothered me the whole game. Every time I passed, something would catch back there. Now it's really sore."