DMN File
Houston coach Bill Yeoman accepts congratulations from Nebraska's Tom Osborne.Elston, UH dish out loss to 'Huskers
Nebraska gags on Herring catch
1/2/1980
This was clearly a meal crying for dessert.
After 45 minutes of shoe-leather roast beef, chalk potatoes and rubber peas, something had to happen to save the Cotton Bowl Classic's first serving of the new decade from dying a bland death. It did. And it figured that Herring would be the lip-smacking morsel in a tasty finish for the University of Houston.
And the finish, of course, heh-heh, left Nebraska in a pickle.
For it was a tipped, desperation pass from relief quarterback Terry Elston into the alert hands of wide receiver Eric Herring with 12 seconds left that completed a last-course, 66-yard drive that spelled no relief for the Cornhuskers. Instead, its own fourth-quarter comeback as stale as day-old bread, Nebraska was pushed away from the table with a 17-14 loss.
It was a bit of sweet revenge for the Cougars, who had lost a 35-34 decision to Notre Dame with two seconds left in last year's Classic.
Houston's victory this year came in as improbable a manner as did its defeat of a year ago.
The game had entered the fourth quarter knotted at 7-7 ad it had been the early moments of the second quarter since anyone had gotten out of his/her respective seat for anything except to go to the bathroom. But the pace had picked up in the fourth with Houston gaining a 10-7 lead on Kenny Hatfield's hair-breadth 41-yard field goal (8:25). Then losing it back (14-10) when the 'Huskers turned a John Newhouse fumble into a 31-yard touchdown march that culminated with a 6-yard pass from QB Jeff Quinn to lonesome tight end Jeff Finn with only 3:56 worth of playing time left.
Houston, guided by some pinpoint passing of Elston, who had relieved Delrick Brown in the first quarter, had moved consistently downfield from its own 34 after a 31-yard kickoff runback by Eddie Wright until it came to one play – a fourth-and-goal shot from the Nebraska six with 19 seconds and no UH time outs left.
Elston retreated and looked. If there was an opening, only he could see it. He threw down the middle to where Herring was waiting five yards deep in the end zone – along with 'Husker defenders Ric Lindquist and Russell Gary. The pass either hit Lindquist on the arm and popped over into Herring's hands or Herring reached in and tipped it up and looked it in. Lindquist said he felt it hit his arm. Herring said he reached in and tipped it. It doesn't matter whether it came in by dumbwaiter, it counted for the game-winning touchdown.
"I think I hit it with my arm," Lindquist said. "I thought I had knocked it down. I couldn't believe when I saw him catch it."
Herring, the clutch receiver who was injured much of the season but among others had made a crucial long catch from Elston in the 17-14 win over Texas A&M, claimed he had given the ball a little help.
"The ball went under the Nebraska guy's arm," he explained. "I reached out with my right hand and got a piece of it. The ball bounced up and I grabbed it.
"My only thought," he said, grinning, "was to grab it and grab it in a hurry."
"I saw him (Herring) juggling the ball in the end zone and I didn't know what happened," UH coach Bill Yeoman said. "But I knew when it was something good when everybody around me started jumping up and down."
They jumped up and down all over the field, so much so that they were flagged 15 yards on the kickoff after Hatfield's extra point.
Nebraska still had 12 seconds and two time outs to work with, but the 'Huskers, who had had success with some tricky plays during the course of the afternoon, got too cute this time. The kickoff came down to return man Kenny Brown on the Nebraska 18. He started upfield, then pulled up and threw a lateral pass across the field for speedster Anthony Steels. But UH freshman defensive back Tim Adams leaped high to tip the ball away before it got to Steels and teammate Leo Truss recovered for the Coogs on the 'Husker 13 with four seconds left.
"It was a real good football game," Tom Osborne sighed. "Houston just did it one more time than we did. They have been able to come back all year."
It was the sixth time the Cougars have come back to win in the fourth quarter and the fifth time that Elston – voted the game's outstanding offensive player – has figured in the win in relief, a trait which had earned him the nickname "Joe Sambito" from his teammates. Elston, who came in for Brown and stayed from the first series of the second quarter, was the game's leading rusher with 87 yards on 22 carries and hit nine of 16 passes for 119 yards and the touchdown without throwing an interception.
It was, in fact, a game of outstanding defense, but Houston helped Nebraska out by bobbling the ball an official seven times and losing three of them. A score of UH defenders had outstanding ballgames, led by linebacker David Hodge who was voted the game's top defensive player for the second year in a row. Houston limited the high-powered I attack of Nebraska to 136 yards net and held I-back Jarvis Redwine to only 58 yards on 17 carries. Elston, in that final drive, hit Herring three other times – for 10 on third-and-5 from the UH 39, for 15 on second-and-10 from the UH 49 on the same basic play that scored later and for 11 on first down from the 20.
"Terry Elston proved today he can get anything done he wants to," said Yeoman."
Nebraska's finest offensive effort of the day was for the game's first score on a well-executed 14-play, 84 yard drive that ended with Redwine sweeping left end from nine yards out on third-and-2. Five minutes were left in the quarter and Houston had failed to mount any offensive effort against an equally formidable Cornhusker defense. Elston changed that in short order. UH marched 71 yards in seven plays on his first series at QB, with Elston scoring the tying touchdown by breaking two tackles in an 8-yard-run.
That was it for interest until that fourth quarter, though Osborne attempted to keep things lively with an assortment of plays from his bag of tricks that included a tight end-around pass, wingback reverses and the old Swinging Gate play that scored and was called back for an illegal procedure. Nebraska scored on the next play, however, on the Quinn-to-Finn connection.
In repeating a message he had delivered to his team moments before the opening kickoff, Yeoman said, "There's no question in my mind that this football team is the best I've had in my 18 years. Why? Because this team has played the toughest schedule and we've had the best record (11-1). The team was tougher and better in the big games. This team did what it had to do to win."
Which is a whole lot better than being stuck with the check. Again.
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