OLD-SCHOOL FOOTBALL
Oklahoma and Nebraska rushing attacks
The Sooners and Cornhuskers have taken to the ground to get to K.C.

By John Helsley

Published: December 2, 2006

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Somehow, Oklahoma and Nebraska find themselves thrown together here in this wintry weather locale featuring offenses fitting of a frozen night of football.

The Sooners and Cornhuskers, who've taken to passing of late, have gone old, old school in reaching Arrowhead Stadium for the Big 12 Championship.

Off tackle left.

Off tackle right.

Up the middle now, fight, fight fight

"It's gonna be a hard-ball brawl," said OU offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson. "A 60-minute fist fight."

Where have you gone Jason White, with your 7,000-plus passing yards and 75 touchdowns from 2003 and '04? And what to make of Bill Callahan, who ditched the adored Nebraska option attack to install the fanciful West Coast offense?

For these Sooners and Huskers, winning football means running the football.

It's why they're here, colliding for Big 12 supremacy and a trip to the Fiesta Bowl.

OU ranks 14th nationally averaging 188.7 rushing yards a game. Nebraska is 18th at 183.2.

And neither's approach is cute, reliant on getting to the edge and turning on the speed as in their option glory years from the '70s and '80s.

These Huskers and Sooners prefer a brutish brand of macho ball.

"They've gone to the downhill running game," Nebraska defensive end Adam Carriker said of the Sooners. "There aren't many teams that do it any more. Us and them might be the only two that do it the most.

"It's kind of an old-school, smash-mouth offense."

Said OU center Jon Cooper: "Try to see who's bigger and badder up front, I guess."

Nebraska sensed a need to become more rugged, after averaging but 2.7 yards per carry a year ago.

"Hideous," is how Callahan described those numbers this week.

Now the Huskers average 4.4 yards an attempt — with attitude.

"To run it well, you have to have that mentality, that attitude along with it," said Nebraska offensive guard Greg Austin. "It's not just running it, you have to have attitude to be successful with it."

The Huskers ranked 107th in rushing in 2005.

"Based on where we were a year ago," Callahan said, "we've come a long way."

For the Huskers, the improved running game has brought balance to the offense.

Quarterback Zac Taylor, the Big 12's Offensive Player of the Year, remains the key element in the Nebraska attack. Taylor averages 232.4 passing yards a game, having thrown for 24 touchdowns with just four interceptions.

The difference is Taylor was too often left the only option a year ago. Now the Huskers have four running backs with 100-yard games, led by the late-charging Brandon Jackson, who rushed for 727 yards and five touchdowns as Nebraska went 5-2 the last seven games.

And the Huskers have leaned on the running game at critical times.

"Any quarterback will tell you you'd he love to have a great running back," Taylor said. "For me, I've got four great running backs and that helps.

"It's exciting to me to be able to hand the ball off five or six plays in a row and still know that that drive is going to be alive."

Five or six plays in a row is nothing for the Sooners, who have turned more and more to the run of late, even with Adrian Peterson out with broken collarbone.

OU, too, has used four runners, although not be design.

Peterson's injury created a feature role for Allen Patrick, who responded with three straight 100-yard games, before a sprained ankle put freshman Chris Brown in the spotlight and resulted in 84- and 169-yard rushing efforts.

Patrick returned a week ago to run through Oklahoma State for 163 yards and a score, while Brown added 74 and two touchdowns.

Through the first seven games of the season, the Sooners were averaging 25.4 passes a game. Since then, attempts are down to 18.4 ? 15.25 if you take away 31 passes thrown against Texas Tech.

OU's reliance on the run coincides with the emergence of its now-dominant defense. The Sooners aren't hesitant to throw, seen in Paul Thompson's 309-yard passing game against Tech three games ago.

Yet once in the lead and once the defense finds its lock-down mode, whether that's early or late, the Sooners seem more than content to run, run, run.

"It's, ‘Hey, we're coming at you,'" Thompson said. "Sometimes, they might know where we're going. That hasn't stopped us.

"As long as we're more physical than they are and running harder than they are, it doesn't matter if we line up and tell them, ‘We're going here; We're going there.'"

In their 27-21 win over the Cowboys, OU attempted a season-low 11 passes ? just one in the fourth quarter.

"We love it," said Cooper, one piece of a physical and confident unit that seems to improve by the week. "We hear the play call in the huddle and we get a smile on our face before we walk up to the line.

"You go put that hand down, it's time to go to work."