NO DEFENSIVE RESPECT – Mike Babcock
Nebraska defensive coordinator Charlie McBride seemed irritated following the Huskers’ third victory of the 1994 season, 49-21 against UCLA at Memorial Stadium, September 17.
Not with his defense, but rather with what seemed lack of respect for it. “Our concern isn’t how many points they (the Bruins) score,” McBride said. “It’s how many kids who didn’t play.”
Yes, UCLA finished with 414 yards, including 285 passing. But Nebraska led 49-14 with 11:32 remaining, and McBride used 41 players, including everyone on the first three teams.
Thirty-one Huskers had at least one tackle, led by linebacker Ed Stewart, rover Kareem Mossand SAM linebacker Troy Dumas, with 10 each.
UCLA quarterback Wayne Cook was 15-of-28 passing for 217 of the yards and the Bruins’ first touchdown, but he was intercepted twice, by free safety Tony Veland and backup SAM linebacker Clint Brown, and sacked twice, by outside linebacker Dwayne Harris and defensive tackle Terry Connealy.
Veland, who also intercepted a pass in the Texas Tech game, stepped up as the starter at free safety after Mike Minter suffered a season-ending ACL injury in Lubbock. Veland had been No. 2 on the depth chart. Freshman rover Octavious McFarlin was taken out of a redshirt to bolster the secondary. The plan was still to redshirt sophomore cornerback Michael Booker.
Booker was subsequently pulled from a redshirt.
If Nebraska’s offense hadn’t been so explosive, fewer defenders would’ve gotten on the field. Specifically, if the Huskers’ rushing offense hadn’t been so explosive. Nebraska rushed for 484 yards, led by I-back Lawrence Phillips, who carried 19 times for 178 yards and a touchdown.
Phillips rushed for more than 100 yards in each of the first two games, as well.
Clinton Childs, third on the depth chart at I-back, carried seven times for 78 yards and a touchdown. The Huskers’ seven touchdowns were scored by seven players.
Quarterback Tommie Frazier, 5-for-11 passing for 59 yards, ran for a touchdown and passed for two, 23 yards to tight end Eric Alford to open the scoring, and 9 yards to split end Brendan Holbein, 5 seconds into the fourth quarter.
A week before, Holbein, a sophomore from Cozad, Nebraska, had suffered a bullet wound as a bystander when a fight broke out at a party in Omaha. The Huskers didn’t have a game that Saturday because they had played at Texas Tech Thursday.
UCLA Coach Terry Donahue was effusive in his praise of Frazier. “I really feel that the key to Nebraska’s team offensively is Tommie Frazier,” he said. “He’s a very, very special and very different player, and I think he’s phenomenal.”
Before the game, Donahue had said he thought Frazier “was in an elite class of athletes in college football. After having him this year on AstroTurf, I probably feel stronger about my belief than before the game . . . He’s a Michael Jordan-type player that just makes such a difference in a game.”
Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne wasn’t happy with UCLA’s 414 yards of offense. “I don’t like to just have to outscore people,” he said, contributing, no doubt, to McBride’s frustration.
UCLA went into the game 2-0 and ranked 13. Nebraska had dropped to 2 in the Associated Press poll, behind Florida, but remained 1 in the Coaches poll.
Bruins running back Sharmon Shah, who carried 18 times for 91 yards and a touchdown, was quoted in the Sunday Journal and Star, adding to the defensive frustration. Nebraska had “maybe the No. 1 offense in the nation, but I don’t know about their defense,” he said.
Time would tell.
