Any Nebraska football fan of a certain age remembers Matt Davison’s touchdown catch on the final play of regulation in the 1997 Missouri game at Columbia. You can check it out on YouTube.
Words don’t do the play justice, but …
The Scott Frost pass was intended for Shevin Wiggins, who appeared to have the ball then didn’t. It deflected off Wiggins’ foot. Davison made a dive, kept the ball from hitting the ground, rolled and stood up, showing it. “I just wanted to see the call before I got excited,” Davison said afterward.
The game clock was at 00:00.
The Huskers had driven 67 yards on 10 plays, beginning with 1:02 remaining. The final snap came with 7 seconds on the clock.
A few Missouri fans ran onto the field to celebrate what they thought was a 38-31 victory.
“I wasn’t sure they were going to give us the catch,” Tom Osborne said, referring to the officials.
But they did.
Kris Brown kicked the extra point for a tie at 38.
Nebraska lost the overtime coin toss and got the ball first. Frost ran 12 yards for a touchdown on third down and Brown kicked the extra point. On fourth down, after two incomplete passes and a 3-yard run, Grant Wistrom and Mike Rucker sacked Missouri quarterback Corby Jones for a 6-yard loss. Game over. The top-ranked Huskers had avoided an upset, 45-38.
Jones, who passed for three touchdowns and ran for another, was a side story, and not just because of his play. He had been recruited by Nebraska and reportedly seriously considered the Huskers except for the fact he was from Columbia, Missouri — oh yes, and his dad was a Tiger assistant.
Talk of Jones’ recruitment motivated him, said Frost, who rushed for 141 yards and four touchdowns on 23 carries and completed 11-of-24 passes for 175 yards and the Davison touchdown, the first of his college career — he was a freshman — and second in the game. Frost was intercepted twice.
Nebraska finished with 528 yards of offense, including 353 rushing. Ahman Green had a game-high 189 yards and a touchdown on 30 carries. Brown kicked a 44-yard field goal.
Octavious McFarlin, Mike Brown, Jay Foreman and Jason Peter all had eight tackles. Wistrom and Rucker had two sacks each, Eric Johnson one.
“I don’t know what will happen in the polls,” said Osborne. “I’m just glad we won.”
The Huskers improved to 9-0, including 6-0 in the Big 12. Missouri had been 6-3 and unranked, on the way to its first winning record in 14 seasons.
“I still think we’re the No. 1 team in the country,” Frost said.
Voters in the major polls didn’t agree. In the Associated Press poll, Michigan, which had been No. 3, climbed to No. 1 with a 34-8 victory over No. 2 Penn State. And Florida State, which had been No. 3, climbed to No. 2 with a 20-3 victory over No. 5 North Carolina. The ESPN Coaches Poll had Florida State No. 1 and Michigan No. 2.
Playing Missouri was “going to be a challenge,” Osborne said following the previous week’s 69-7 victory over Oklahoma. “I talked to the players about that in the locker room. We’d better get our helmets on and chinstraps fastened up when we get down to Columbia because they’re (Tigers) really going to play hard.”
As it turned out, he was more right than he knew. Check out that final play in regulation on YouTube.
