South Roundup : Sooners’ One-Two Quarterback Punch Does In Tar Heels

Stopping one Oklahoma quarterback is a tough task for any team. North Carolina found that stopping two can make for a long Saturday.

The fourth-ranked Sooners played both their quarterbacks in their season opener, and Jamelle Holieway and Charles Thompson directed the wishbone attack to a 28-0 victory over the Tar Heels at Chapel Hill, N.C.

The Sooner offense did not break off the long plays as expected with their huge edge in speed over the Tar Heel defense. Instead, Oklahoma used three sustained drives to get its points, and the fourth touchdown resulted when a North Carolina penalty on a Sooner field goal attempt kept a drive alive.

Oklahoma rushed 71 times for 391 yards. Holieway, returning from a knee injury that caused him to miss the final 3 games of 1987, and Thompson combined to complete 3 of 6 passes for 72 yards. The Sooners fumbled seven times and lost two.

“We were taking our time,” Thompson said. “We weren’t going out expecting to explode. We just wanted to go out and execute.”

The Tar Heels (0-2) have not scored in their last six quarters. Against Oklahoma, North Carolina has one touchdown in the last three games in the series.

North Carolina’s offense had limited success against the Sooners, who lost seven defensive starters from the 1987 team. The Tar Heels moved within striking distance on three of their first six possessions, getting inside the Oklahoma 40, but couldn’t score.

Clemson 23, Furman 3--Clemson did what it usually does against Furman--win. But the third-ranked Tigers weren’t very impressive in beating its oldest college football rival at Clemson, S.C.

“As we look at the films Sunday, we’ll see Furman was responsible for the way we looked at times,” Coach Danny Ford said. “They gave us a hard contest and stopped our offense more times than we would like to think about.”

Tailback Terry Allen scored two touchdowns and freshman Chris Gardocki kicked three field goals as Clemson beat the Paladins, an NCAA Division I-AA team, for the 23rd straight time in a series that began in 1896.

Clemson struggled to beat a Furman team that, despite its lower classification, came into the game with a 3-1-1 record since 1982 against Atlantic Coast Conference teams.

The Paladins (1-1), whose offensive line gave up an average of 35 pounds per man to the Tigers’ defensive front, kept Clemson off guard with a tough running attack and scrappy defense that refused to surrender a big play.

Quarterback Rodney Williams threw for 74 yards to become the Tigers’ third all-time passing yardage leader with 3,649, surpassing Homer Jordan, who paced Clemson to the national championship in 1981.

Wyoming 44, Louisville 9--Quarterback Randy Welniak got 307 yards of total offense and accounted for 2 touchdowns before leaving the game in the third quarter as the Cowboys improved to 2-0 at Louisville, Ky.

Wyoming capitalized on a Louisville turnover and mental mistake to score 2 touchdowns in a 17-second span of the first quarter to put the game away.

Welniak threw a 32-yard touchdown pass to Freddie Dussett to make it 7-0 with 3:58 left in the quarter one play after Cowboy safety Ronald Dean recovered a Louisville fumble. On the ensuing kickoff, Louisville’s Walter Wise failed to field a short kick, and Wyoming’s Daryl Harris downed it on the 25. One play later, Welniak faked a handoff to the right and scored on a bootleg run to the left at the 3:41 mark.

Louisville (0-2) had its 7 first-half possessions end in 2 punts and 5 turnovers--3 interceptions and 2 fumbles. Wyoming cornerback Steve McMillon grabbed 2 of the interceptions and recovered 1 of the fumbles.

Georgia Tech 24, Tennessee Chattanooga 10--Todd Rampley came off the bench to engineer three fourth-quarter scoring drives and lead the Yellow Jackets to the come-from-behind win in their season opener at Atlanta.

Florida State 49, Southern Mississippi 13--Chip Ferguson ended any quarterback controversy at Florida State, for the time being at least, by throwing for 239 yards and 3 touchdowns to lead the 10th-ranked Seminoles at Tallahassee, Fla.

Ferguson, who left after the first series of the second half with Florida State leading, 35-10, completed 12 of 17 passes, but he was intercepted twice. The Seminoles (1-1) opened a 28-0 lead midway through the second quarter as Ferguson passed for 191 yards by halftime.

Houston 60, Louisiana Tech 0--Jason Phillips caught a Southwest Conference record 16 passes, 2 of them for touchdowns, in the Cougars’ rout at Shreveport, La.

The teams threw a total of 129 passes in the game, an NCAA Division I record. Four Houston quarterbacks completed 45 of 73 passes for 552 yards in the Cougar season opener, and Louisiana Tech, an NCAA Division I-AA team bidding to move to up I-A, hit 21 of 56 for 216 yards.

Houston also took advantage of seven lost fumbles by Tech, penetrated inside the 25-yard line five times without scoring and also had four touchdowns wiped out by penalties.

Penn State 42, Virginia 14--Tailback Gary Brown, the replacement for the injured Blair Thomas, ran for 2 touchdowns and caught a 19-yard pass for a third as the 18th-ranked Nittany Lions opened their season by scoring 21 points in the first 9:07 of the game at Charlottesville, Va.

South Carolina 38, Western Carolina 0--The 16th-ranked Gamecocks scored on their first possession at Columbia, S.C., and never looked back.

Wake Forest 35, Illinois State 0--Mark Young rushed for 118 yards and a touchdown and Tony Rogers added 108 yards and 2 scores to lead Wake Forest, which scored on 4 of its 4 six drives, at Winston-Salem, N.C.

Memphis State 9, Arkansas State 7--Memphis State scored a touchdown on its first possession of the game and John Butler kicked a 43-yard field on the final series of the first half and then the Tigers held on for the win at Memphis, Tenn.