Hollow ground?

Sporting News, The, Jan 15, 1996 by Terry Frei

Lawrence Phillips helped Nebraska overwhelm Florida and win a second consecutive national title, but his troubles may be remembered as much as the team's triumphs

The night after the Fiesta Bowl, David Letterman says the Cornhuskers have been treated unfairly because, given a chance, they can grow up to be "model prisoners."The Gators fan next to me on a Phoenix-to-Denver flight otherwise jammed with Nebraska rooters says: "Support your Cornhuskers -- leave your car un-locked." I come back with the cheap shot that the Nebraska players think the "N" on the helmet stands for "Nowledge."

Absolutely, we're piling on, making blanket generalizations about a group of more than 100 young men -- some of whom will go on to the NFL" some to medical schools, some to other honorable careers. And, yes, maybe one or two to prison.

A tainted national championship? Is there really such an animal in our It's-The-Only-Thing society? Some of the writers ripping Nebraska Coach Tom Osborne for his handling of the Lawrence Phillips affair and the Huskers for their off-field conduct in 1995 would pontificate that Osborne "has lost his touch" if he recruited only 3.5-GPA students of exemplary conduct from now on and lost four games in '98. Some of us ripping Osborne see nothing inconsistent about championing as geniuses some coaches or TV commentators who made their reputations winning in programs that make Nebraska's look like a monastery.

But the flak won't let up for a while, even in the wake of the Huskers, 62-24 thrashing of the Gators. The indignant denunciation, especially about Osborne's decision to allow Phillips back into the program after his brutal assault on former girlfriend Kate McEwen will continue. The jokes will come off the latenight cue cards. Perhaps next fall, when Phillips is running in the NFL after going high in the draft's first round, when electric Tommie Frazier is trying to crack the league at some position other than quarterback, when sophomore I-back Ahman Green is sprinting through the tractor sized holes for the Huskers in that key Big i2 North Division showdown with Colorado, when Osborne still is acting as if a smile would be a sign of weakness, there will be those even then who believe-the stench hasn't blown away.

"I think we'll be remembered for the hard work and the dedication we gave on the football field," says Frazier, who had a remarkable 199-yard rushing night against Florida in the Valley of the Tortilla Chip ... er, Sun

Frazier is wrong, and that is unfortunate.

Nebraska, Osborne and even Phillips had a chance to turn the Fiesta Bowl into more than a stunning rout, and more than the attainment of a second consecutive national title. It could have been a triumph of compassion, a celebration of a rehabilitation-in-progress. The Fiesta Bowl could have been a way of saying something more significant than "We're No. 1!" or "Scoreboard!"; yet that's the way it came off.

After Phillips ran for 165 yards and scored three touchdowns, his postgame reaction was. odd. Maybe I was expecting a 2-year-old from a disadvantaged background to behave with the savvy of an older person, but wouldn't you think somebody would have gotten this across to Phillips? This is your chance, Lawrence! Your chance to further express to Osborne your gratitude wh-ich you mildly offered earlier in the week in your one session with the media. This time, it will be in the postgame spotlight, and it will be your chance to luxuriate in a success with your teammates, whom you say you missed so much during your suspension. This will be your chance to show the world -- a world that includes NFL coaches and 12-year-olds in boys, homes -- that you're not such a jerk, after all.

So when the Fiesta Bowl ends, while his teammates are celebrating on the field, Phillips trots up the tunnel at the north en3 zone of Sun Devil Stadium. He stops at the entrance to the locker room walkway to sign a hat for a security guard and the shirt of a Nebraska fan. He goes into the locker room, alone, and a few: minutes later is downright surly in the interview room. "I knew that we would run the ban and try and wear them down, and that's basically what happened," he says. "We were blocking people and cutting the defensive backs, and I think they got tired of getting cut and blocked, and we wore them out." He looks bored at the microphone and after a brief stint, declines to talk further.

Osborne, for his part, makes a postgame plea with the school presidents of the Big 12, saying the Texas schools, insistence on taking fewer academic "non qualifiers" would be a competitive disadvantage. "I hope they'll look at the fact that we have four teams in the top 10," Osborne says, referring to the Big Eight. "We did it with Big Eight rules, and we hope very much that they will reconsider and try to let the Big Eight play with Big Eight rules and not change things. We think it makes for a strong conference."

That's the way to lean into a punch: Encourage the stereotype that the lower the standards, the better the team.