Sugar Bowl : There’s No Way Nebraska, LSU Can Spoil BYU’s Day

This may turn out to be a good football game, but there is no way it can turn into an important one. Even Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne agrees “extraordinary things” would have to happen tonight for the Sugar Bowl to decide a national championship. More extraordinary even than scoreless ties across the board and Nebraska beating LSU by the national deficit.

This game, before a sold-out Superdome crowd and a national TV audience, is kind of a Default Bowl this time around, which spoils a Sugar Bowl tradition of providing national champions--six since 1973.

LSU (8-2-1, and ranked No. 11 and No. 12 by the wire services) is here only because Florida was disqualified by the Southeastern Conference after NCAA violations. Also because Alabama scored a huge upset over Auburn on the last day of the season. Who expected that?

Nebraska (9-2, and ranked No. 4 and No. 5) is here because of a season-ending tumble to eventual Big Eight champion Oklahoma. Nebraska had hoped to get into the Orange Bowl, where it could cry about BYU’s soft schedule, beat Washington and lay claim to No. 1. That singular honor goes to Oklahoma, instead.

Just as there is no championship at stake, there are no truly great matchups either. Neither team has produced what you could call a star, certainly no standout like a Doug Flutie or a Keith Byars. Only LSU’s Dalton Hilliard, a 5-8 tailback who rushed for 1,268 yards this season, qualifies for recognition from the Fighting Tigers, although quarterback Jeff Wickersham strong-armed his way to an LSU season passing record with 2,165 yards.

Nebraska, as usual, is so deep it is impossible to single anybody out. Normally, you would zero in on an I-back like Jeff Smith, who rushed for 935 yards this season. Except that (after Smith’s ankle injury in the UCLA game), his replacement, Doug DuBose, went on to gain 1,040 yards in relief. The quarterback position is also a shared one, with Craig Sundberg getting only slightly more action than Travis Turner.

But you could probably do as well behind the Nebraska line. They are not called “Corn-Huskies” for nothing. Built up by Nebraska’s famous strength-conditioning program (what else to do in Lincoln?), these guys tilt the earth at between 260 and 290 pounds. And they can move. Together, they’ve moved the Nebraska offense to an average of more than 300 yards rushing and 30 points a game.

Nebraska is rated a 7 1/2-point favorite almost entirely because of its offense, which resembles nothing so much as heavy-duty construction equipment rolling in formation. The defense, although led by four seniors in the backfield, is thought to be vulnerable to the long pass, or even the short pass. Certainly, it has been beaten on the big play.

Some attention, deservedly, falls on the coaches. LSU’s Bill Arnsparger because he turned a program around in only his first year. Arnsparger had been in the NFL since 1964, mostly as defensive genius for the Baltimore Colts and Miami Dolphins but also briefly as a head coaching failure for the New York Giants. Arnsparger is the man who gave the NFL the “Killer B’s” and the “No-Name Defense,” helping other coaches to reach five Super Bowls.

But then the LSU job opened up, as might be expected after Jerry Stovall dropped the program to a 4-7 record, and the down-home Arnsparger went after it. Why in the world? . . . “Well, I was interested in more than coaching defense.” Like what? “Like talking at high school banquets, like recruiting.”

If those are a few of Arnsparger’s favorite things, they are fast fading on Osborne’s list. Big serious Dr. Tom, the only Osborne never to be called Ozzie, admitted to wondering whether college coaching is all that wonderful a profession. He got to wondering about it this week when a player he recruited 12 years ago surfaced with charges that the coach had tried to buy him off.

This made a little splash in the papers but seemed about to sink out of sight when Osborne, taking his part in Dueling Polygraphs, announced Saturday that he had just taken a lie detector test, clearing him of most if not all wrongdoing.

Hardly anybody but Osborne cared, but he cared a lot. When he approached reporters, offering to show them “the wavy lines,” there were more than a few raised eyebrows. Shouldn’t he be worrying about LSU’s lines?

Still, most reporters were grateful for something to write about this week. With no chance--with no reason--to discredit No. 1 BYU’s schedule, it would have been a dull time, indeed. In New Orleans, even.