Oklahoma State University Athletics
Football Coach Wary of Nebraska 'Sharks'
April 08, 2003 | Cowboy Football
The Cornhuskers opened the season by roughing up sophomore QBs in blowouts over Iowa and California, getting eight sacks and forcing six turnovers while not allowing an offensive touchdown.
Simmons brings his own pair of young quarterbacks - sophomore B.J. Tiger and freshman backup Ben Bowling - into Saturday's game and knows the Huskers (4-0 overall, 1-0 Big 12) are anxious to greet them.
"In that kind of atmosphere, you've got to give yourself a chance to win. If you go up there and you turn it over, it's like a shark, and you know what sharks do," said Simmons, 0-2 against No. 6 Nebraska.
Tiger has been starting in place of Tony Lindsay, who tore the medial collateral ligament and stretched the anterior cruciate ligament in his left leg during a Sept. 4 game with Louisiana-Lafayette. Lindsay is not expected to play Saturday when the Cowboys (2-1) open their Big 12 schedule.
The Cowboys are averaging just 311 yards per game. Tiger is Oklahoma State's second-leading rusher with 121 yards and has passed for 322, while Bowling has 35 yards rushing and 89 passing. They face a Cornhuskers defense that's holding opponents to 38.8 rushing yards per game - second in the nation - and 158 passing yards. Nebraska has allowed just three offensive touchdowns this season.
"When you go into Lincoln, you've got to make sure that you're poised, that you're confident, that you don't turn the football over," Simmons said. "Because the history up there is the crowd, when you have a turnover, they get into the football game. When you win in Lincoln, you control your fate by executing your game plan and that allows you to win. That has been done before."
But not lately by Oklahoma State, which last beat Nebraska in 1961 in Stillwater, Okla. The Cowboys last win in Lincoln was in 1960, the first meeting between the two.
Simmons doesn't want to worry about history - Nebraska holds a 34-2-1 advantage in the series - and neither does Huskers coach Frank Solich, whose team needed a goal-line stand in the closing seconds to hold off the Cowboys last year, 24-17.
Solich points to Memphis, which nearly shocked No. 7 Tennessee last weekend, as an example of why the Huskers can't afford to take the Cowboys lightly.
"Oklahoma State is not in that category. Oklahoma State is a fine football team and we need to prepare with that in mind," Solich said.
Nebraska opened conference play last week with a 40-10 win at Missouri. The Huskers broke out of an offensive slump with 476 yards, including 333 rushing. But Solich is still concerned about facing the Cowboys, who are third nationally in total defense and didn't play last weekend.
"If you want to look at making some major changes in your approach and what you're doing when you have an off week, like they do now at this time of the year, now is the time to make major changes," Solich said. "So they have that advantage going into this game."
