18
Wednesday, November 8, 1978
University Daily Kansan
Rough weeks sober MU Tigers
COLUMBIA, Mo. (UPI)—It’s hard to believe a college football team can spend seven games building bowl hopes and then watch them fütter away in five quarters.
But that's what the Missouri football team has done. Two weeks ago, the Tigers owned the world. They were 5-2, had a throng of bowl representatives trailing their path and being knocked out by the superior Colorado, Oklahoma State and Kansas—to receive a decent bowl bid.
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but a funny thing happened on the way to the Liberty Ballroom. Colorado and Oklahoma State upset Missouri during the past two weeks—the Buffs with a fourth-quarter rally and the Cowboys with a fire-up playoff series. That left the Rangers with a 5-4 record and no bowl hopes.
And nobody knows it more than first-year Coach Warren Powers.
The frustration took its toll Monday when Powers was explaining the Oklahoma State loss to reporters and was told he sounded confused.
"NO, I SOUND bleeped off," responded Powers. "It's my responsibility to get them going. And they'll play well, I'll guarantee that."
Then he stormed out of the session.
One player, who wanted to remain anonymous, said Powers told the team similar things. He said Powers called them crazy, insisted they were wrong and said they "had been losers too long."
"The guy's right," said Missouri defensive back Ross Calabrese. "At least we know where he's coming from. We'll just have to show him we have a lot of character."
A lot of guys realized that they had been doing wrong once they saw the film."
It wasn't hard to pick out Missouri's "wrouts" in the Oklahoma State loss. The team that had shut out Notre Dame in South Bend, DEn, to start the season was victimized by three interceptions, two fumbles and four penalties in last week's loss.
Missouri's once-earned backfield combination of Earl Gant and James Wilder paced a paltry running attack that gained only 23 yards in 29 carries against Oklahoma State. The Tigers had been averaging 238 rushing yards a game.
"WE'RE a big-play team," Powers said, "and you can't give away those big plays on defense like we did. Plus I tried to pass too much in second half. There was no
But in the aftermath of Missouri's worst defeat of the 1978 season, most of the Tigers were treating it like a hangover: Forget about it and maybe it will go away.
"The game's over now," said sophomore quarterback Phil Bradley, who passed for a personal high 295 yards Saturday. "I think a lot of players start trying to answer those questions, things will just get worse. I think we should let this problem take care of it."
self. If you start worrying about it, it doesn't do you any good.
"Whenever you lose, everybody's got an answer for it. But when you're winning, nobody's going to dig down inside and try to find out why."
Instead, Missouri is trying to analyze Kansas—a team that has beaten them six of the last seven years, including the last three in a row. But this year Missouri's incentive will go a little deeper than the usual Missouri-Kansas rivalry.
13 shouldn't just be a personal thing against
14 them for beating us so much" linebacker Billy Bess said. "But now we have to come
15 up the two weeks and get a winning record."
"People want to blow them away!" Caleb rebuffed, "so we can show people how it works."
Rice wins AL MVP
NEW YORK (AP) - Slugger Jim Rice of the Boston Red Sox, the first American Leaguer in 41 years to accumulate more than 400 total bases in a single season, was named the AL's Most Valuable Player for his Writers Association of America Tuesday.
Bice beat Cy Young award winner Ron Gudryd of the New York Yankees comfortably. The Boston slugger received 20 first-place votes from the 28-man BBWAA committee and a total of 532 points, while Gudryd, a unanimous second place last week, had 291 points in the MVP election and the other eight first-place votes.
The only player to break the Rice-Guddy hold on the first two voting positions was Milwaukee's Larry Hale, who received one second-place ballot and finished third with
It took that kind of statistical dominance to beat Gudry, who led the majors with a 25-3 record that included nine shutouts and a 1.74 earned run average. Gudry's .893 winning percentage was the highest for any 29-game winner in baseball history.
Carew of Minnesota, who hit .333, and Al Oliver of Texas, who had a .324 average.
Rice and Guidry were the only players named on all 28 ballots.
Following Hise were Amos Otis of Kansas City, who had 90 points, Rusty Staub of Detroit, 88; Craig Nettles of New York, 86; Don Baylor of California, 51; Edie Murray of Baltimore, 50; Carlton Fisk of Boston, 49; and Darrell Porter of Kansas City, 48.
Carew finished 11th with 46 points.
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Rice was only the sixth player in the American League to break the 400 total points record.
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Gudrys's chances for the MVP probably were the damage of the Cy Young Award. Since 1965, when the baseball writers asked him to play in each league to their post-season awards, only five hurlers have won both that award and the MVP. They were Newcombie in 1966, Sandy Kourakis in 1974, Bob Gibson in 1986 and Vida Rage in 1971.
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Rice won the MVP designation following an awesome season at the plate. He led the majors with 46 home runs and 139 runs batted in, and had 404 total bases—the first AL hit to reach that plateau since Joe Djaggio had 418 total bases in 1937.
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Rice also led the majors in hits with 213 and in triples with 15. He had a slugging percentage of 600 and batted .315, third in the American League behind 1977 MVP Rod
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DR. BERNARD BUTTERWORTH- Chairman, Admission Committee, UMKC School of Dentistry.
DR. RICHARD E. LAND—Outstanding Dentist in Lawrence.
DEAN ROBERT ADAMS—Assoc. Dean, LA&S, Pre-Med/Pre- Dentor Advisor—KU
Thursday, November 9, 7:30 p.m.
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Linebacker Young still doubtful for MU game
Linebacker Soellars Young remained on the doubled starters list for Saturday's game with Missouri, head coach Bud Moore said yesterday.
Young, KU's leading tackler with 67 unassisted and 44 assisted tackles, has been hampered with ankle and hip pointer injuries.
"He's the only one we have that is doubtful right now." Moore said.
More also said that lineman Franklin King will start on both offense and defense. King had played both ways in practice, but this will be the first time he has started.
Safety Robert Foote be the only starting defensive freshman.
"We're going to try to rest him some," he said. "But he'll play a good bit in the ballgame."
Moore said that there was a good chance that punt retURN Jimmy Little would be able to play Saturday. Little had been out with a bruised shoulder.
Foote started at strong safety Saturday against Nebraska, picking up eight unassisted tackles and four assists.
"Foote's capable of playing a number of positions," he said, "But we plan on using him at lot of strong safety."
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A conference title and the high regional seed that goes with it will be on the line when the Kansas volleyball team tangles with Kansas State at 6:30 tonight in Robinson
Spikers meet for seeding
To emerge as conference champions, KU will have to do something it hasn't been able to do.
In fact, the Jayhawks will have to down their archrivals twice tonight to earn the No. 2 seed in regional competition, which will be held Nov. 16-18.
five or best of three games will be decided just before the opening match.
KU, 25-14 overall, is 2-1 in conference play. KState is 3-0. If KU wins the best of five match, a special playoff game would be played, and the varsity match between the two schools.
Whether that playoff would be the best of
K-State, 32-10-2 overall, has defeated KU twice this season. On Oct. 4, the two teams played a conference match in Manhattan and played it coming out on Sep. 12, 13-15 and 13-15.
In the Big Eight Championships in
Lake Erie downed the Jayhawks
12, 16, 18-14 and 14.
Both KU and K-State each have qualified for regional competition by downing Wichita State twice. But the high seeding championship would be a real championship in the matter at hand tonight.
Six states are represented in the regional Each state sends two teams.
MISSION (UP1)—Top-ranked Oklahoma and fourth-ranked Nebraska continue to dominate the NCAA Division I offensive team, but Michigan State is moving up quickly.
The Big Ten Spartans, who crushed Illinois 19-19 last Saturday for their fourth straight victory, have moved into the No. 3 spot in both total offense and scoring this week with an average of 468.1 yards and 35.5 points.
Nebraska used a 799-yard, 63-point performance against Kansas last week to win the N.C. State Championship.
OU,NU lead NCAA stats
SMU moved ahead of Stanford into the top spot in passion offence this week with an average of 278 yards per game. Michigan won the No. 6 spot with an average of 259 yards.
average of 515.2 total yards and 41.3 points per game.
Ubeatenko Oklahoma ranks second in both departments with an average of 483.1 total yards and 40.4 points, but the Sooners remained on top in rushing offense with an average of 414.7 yards per game. Nebraska is the number one category with an average of 342.7 yards.
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