An Unsteady Alliance

By JIM HODGES

Dec. 8, 1996 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

ST. LOUIS —

Larry Ditodo stood on the sideline as the final seconds ticked down Saturday. The president-elect of the Sugar Bowl, Ditodo had a sour look on his face, disbelief and dismay seeming to overwhelm him as he rolled over the possibilities in his mind.

“We’ll still get the No. 1 and No. 3 teams,” he said finally.

Yeah, but Nebraska won’t be one of them, and Ditodo knew Saturday afternoon, after the Cornhuskers lost to Texas, 37-27, in the first Big 12 Conference championship game, that nothing in front of him was appealing.

“Florida-Florida State. That was a good one for us two years ago,” he offered after a pause.

The two had a rematch in New Orleans then, but to get even that for Jan. 2 Ditodo had to sweat out Florida’s 45-30 victory over Alabama in the Southeastern Conference title game later Saturday. Before that, he had to ponder the possibility of Florida losing, and perhaps No. 1 Florida State playing a No. 3 Brigham Young for the national championship in the Sugar Bowl.

Ditodo put on his best face, smiled wanly and then went looking for some Tums.

He could have gotten a roll from Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne, who didn’t want to play the Big 12 championship game, didn’t want there to be one, because it put another hurdle between his team and a national championship. He was right. The hurdle was too high.

“Obviously, things did not work out like we had hoped,” he said.

Those hopes were for an unprecedented third title in a row, and they looked healthy with 2:11 to play in the third quarter when DeAngelo Evans dived into the end zone to finish a six-yard scoring run and give the No. 3--until today--Cornhuskers (10-2) a 24-23 lead, their first of the game.

They looked even better when Kris Brown kicked a 24-yard field goal with 10:11 to play for a 27-23 lead.

But then James Brown found Wane McGarity open for a 66-yard touchdown and a 30-27 Texas lead with 8:53 to play.

And then Texas Coach John Mackovic called “goal-line, roll left” on fourth down and the width of your little finger at the Longhorns’ 28 with just over two minutes to play.

Said Mackovic to quarterback James Brown, who had an option to throw or carry the ball himself: “Come to run.”

Instead Brown, who finished with 353 passing yards and a touchdown, found tight end Derek Lewis wide open behind the drawn-in Nebraska defense for a gain of 61 yards.

Priest Holmes scored on an 11-yard run on the next play, finishing a lousy day for Nebraska, Ditodo and the Sugar Bowl.

The play surprised everybody in the Trans World Dome, where most of the crowd of 63,109 were wearing Nebraska red.

“I thought they’d run a freeze play to try to draw us offsides,” Osborne said. “Then, when they snapped the ball, I was amazed; and when he rolled out, I was amazed; and when he threw the ball, I was really amazed.”

It wasn’t so surprising. Nor all that amazing, really.

Gutsy, perhaps.

“I told the team all week we would not play cautiously,” said Mackovic, after taking a moment and shaking his head while reading a statistics sheet that showed the Longhorns (8-4) had 503 yards of total offense “against the best defense in the country.”

“I told the quarterbacks [on Friday] that, if we were going to go for it on third or fourth down, that would be the play I would call.”

Brown said he wanted to clear something up: He did not predict Texas would win by three touchdowns earlier in the week, as reported. He had said, when told the Longhorns were a 21-point underdog, “What if they lose by 21 points?”

“We talked about that all game and all week,” he said of “goal-line, roll left” play. “We knew that play would work.”

Nebraska’s Mike Minter, who played linebacker and rover back, was ready for Brown to run.

“He rolled out, and I thought, ‘it’s you and me,’ ” Minter said.

Instead, it was Brown and Lewis, who was so open that the only real problem was making sure he caught the ball. Then he turned and got the same view you did at home, using a little visual aid with every stride.

“I was looking up at the Jumbotron [scoreboard] and I saw that ‘28’ was catching me, so I just did like this,” Lewis said, pantomiming grabbing the ball with two hands so Nebraska’s Jamel Williams couldn’t strip it.

It was the last of 28 passes for Brown, who completed 19, often under pressure from a Nebraska defense that did everything it could to try to disrupt the Longhorns.

“I think we came out and set the tone on that first drive,” Texas guard Dan Neil said.

That drive covered 80 yards and finished with Holmes scoring from five yards. It was the first rushing touchdown Nebraska’s starting defense had given up all season and the first rushing touchdown the Cornhuskers had given up outside the fourth quarter.

“We just gave up too many big plays,” Osborne said.

When Holmes ran in from 61 yards out in the second quarter, it was the longest run the Cornhuskers had given up all season. The 66-yard hookup between Brown and McGarity was the longest play the Cornhuskers had given up.

And Nebraska failed to sack Brown, breaking a 39-game streak of hammering a quarterback at least once in a game.

Mackovic, whose team will wind up in either the Orange or Fiesta bowls, said Nebraska, “is a good fit” for an alliance at-large berth.

But not one in the Sugar Bowl, whose Ditodo meets with the rest of the staff today at noon in New Orleans to sort out the carnage.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

PROBABLE BOWL MATCHUPS

SUGAR

Florida State (11-0) vs. Florida (11-1) at New Orleans

Jan. 2, 5 p.m.

Channel 7

FIESTA

Penn State (10-2) vs. Texas (8-4) at Tempe, Ariz.

Jan. 1, 5 p.m.