Plainly Stated, It's Nebraska

Missouri's Tigers should have sensed it was going to be rugged when they were penalized on their first play for delay of the game. By the end of the first quarter the Huskers had taken charge with a routine field goal and a five-yard touchdown pass from Quarterback Vince Ferragamo to Brad Jenkins set up by a blocked punt. That happened when Nebraska Defensive End Ray Phillips rolled in unmolested and unnoticed to foil the kick with his right hand. "I was the surprised one," said Phillips.

Missouri got a second-quarter touchdown from its injured star, Tailback Tony Galbreath, on a drive helped by a pass-interference call. And on the Nebraska sidelines, Osborne didn't like much of anything he was seeing.

So on a fourth-down play late in the half, in an effort to regain momentum, he ordered a fake punt. Missouri was in a fake-punt defense, but not a defense for this fake punt. The ball was centered to Fullback Tony Davis instead of to the kicker, Randy Lessman. Davis, close behind his partner in this hoax, John O'Leary, handed the ball through O'Leary's legs to John, who never turned around. Then Davis spun as if to hand off on a reverse to Running Back Monte Anthony going around the right side. Meanwhile, O'Leary stood there, doubled over as if ready to block, hiding his secret. With all the commotion to the right, O'Leary swept left alone for 40 yards and the score, while Missouri defenders were reduced to asking people on the sidelines what had happened. What had happened is that the score had become 16-7.

In the second half Ferragamo threw his second and third touchdown passes of the day, both to Bobby Thomas. One went for 37 yards after Missouri dropped a punt, and the other for 61 yards shortly after Missouri was judged guilty of holding on a kick that would have given the Tigers the ball. All of which sent Linebacker Jim Wightman to chortling on the Husker bench, "We still ain't played nobody yet."

Thus far, Osborne has in abundance those two precious qualities that coaches wish would come out in pill form, luck and ability. Example: Osborne was counting heavily this year on Defensive Tackle Ron Pruitt. Pruitt broke his ankle. Out from behind a blocking dummy stepped Jerry Wied, who spelled his name for the coaching staff and promptly set about playing brilliantly. Example: the new linebackers quickly caught on to what this game is all about, although this still may be Nebraska's one soft spot.

Best of all, Osborne has managed to juggle two quarterbacks, both of whom view themselves as clearly the better. First there is Terry Luck, a talented thrower from Fayetteville, N.C. He of the oft-hurt knee is this year's team co-captain and it was he who directed the Huskers' Sugar Bowl win last year. The other is Ferragamo, a lasagna-loving passer who showed up in Lincoln saying he didn't like all that hippie junk at California where he had been playing. He yearned, he said, to play where fans liked football. Nebraska came to mind, sort of like come Dec. 25, Christmas does. Osborne (he has a doctorate; the university's president does not) takes the simple approach: the one who plays better gets to start the next game. But if one falters, the coach is quick to make a switch. Both quarterbacks want to play more; both think Osborne is fair. That's Osborne you see up there on the tightrope.

Osborne even can contend with his free spirit, Fullback Tony Davis, star player in Nebraska's past two bowl games. Last year the coach conned Davis into thinking it would be fun to block more and carry the ball less. Now Osborne has Davis saying he even likes to block. To get ready for his assignment, Davis says, "I don't brush my teeth the day of the game so I'll be as nasty as possible."

This is Osborne's third year at Nebraska, and it's certainly not as if he has been a failure since taking over after the fabled and successful 11 years of Devaney. But his problem is twofold: he has not yet won the Big Eight and, perhaps worse, Nebraska has developed this alarming habit of losing to Oklahoma and, heaven forbid, Missouri. Blowing Missouri out of the tub Saturday took care of some of Osborne's trouble.

The game was disappointing for Missouri, since the Tigers opened the season with an impressive win over Alabama in Birmingham. But Don Faurot, 73, who for 28 years was a college football coach (19 at Missouri), was candid: "Against Alabama, we played a little better than we could."

As for Onofrio, he doesn't plan to change everything just because Nebraska gave his team a licking. He will still, for example, give each of his players a 22-ounce porterhouse steak on the eve of Saturday's game against Iowa State, along with string beans, potato, two scoops of ice cream, two rolls, two glasses of milk, two burps, and to bed. And he'll read a bit more intensively in a thick book he has been lugging around of late, Law of Success.