COLLEGE FOOTBALL / DAILY BOWL REPORT : ORANGE BOWL : Osborne Defends Bowl Losing Skid

Nothing personal against the Big Ten or Pacific 10 Conferences, but Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne said there’s a perfectly good reason why the Cornhuskers haven’t won a bowl game in their last six tries.

“We haven’t been playing Humpty Dumptys,” said Osborne, who last coached a Nebraska team to a postseason victory in 1987, when the Cornhuskers beat Louisiana State in the Sugar Bowl.

Osborne has been pestered all week about Nebraska’s dismal bowl performances. Wednesday, he made sure to mention the quality of Cornhusker postseason opponents. This year, it is No. 1 Florida State. Last year, it was No. 3 Florida State; the year before that, No. 1 Miami; the year before that, No. 2 Georgia Tech; the year before that, No. 5 Florida State; the year before that, No. 2 Miami, and the year before that, No. 3 Florida State.

“If we’d have played (in the) Rose Bowl or gone to El Paso (and the Hancock Bowl), we would have scratched out (at least one victory) in seven years,” Osborne said.

Then again, it is Nebraska.

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Nebraska running back Calvin Jones is still getting laughs from a preseason magazine hunt involving his 65-year-old grandmother.

Jones was named to the Playboy All-American team early in the fall. When his grandmother, Pauline Smith, went to an Omaha bookstore to buy a copy, she was stopped by a well-meaning but misguided clerk.

“I’d like to buy Playboy magazine,” Smith said to the store clerk.

“Uh, Miss, I think you want the Playgirl magazine.”

“No, my grandson is in the Playboy issue.”

Unconvinced about her claim, the clerk got a Playboy, and together they went page by page through the magazine.

“I think my (team) picture was on page 145,” Jones said Wednesday. “They had to go page by page, right past the centerfold. As (the clerk) turned each page, he got redder and redder.”

They finally found Jones’ picture, so Smith bought the magazine. And the clerk?

“He was so shy,” Jones said.

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Barring injury, Florida State quarterback Charlie Ward said he will rejoin the Seminole basketball team several days after the Orange Bowl. If all goes well, Ward said he hopes to be ready in time for a Jan. 11 trip to Maryland.

Ward, a starting point guard, will have missed 10 games by then. Last season, he averaged 7.8 points and 2.6 rebounds per game. With 10 more steals, he’ll become the school’s all-time leader in that category.