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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

A Chink In Nebraska’s Armor Powers’ Formula Helped ‘77 Cougars Down Huskers

Steve Bergum Staff Writer

There was very little Warren Powers didn’t know about the University of Nebraska football program when he took his first - and only - Washington State team into Lincoln, Neb., back on a warm and sunny September afternoon in 1977.

Powers was less than eight months removed from the Cornhuskers’ coaching staff, where he had served as an assistant under Dan Devaney and his predecessor, Tom Osborne, for the previous eight seasons.

He was making his head coaching debut as a three-touchdown underdog and he was looking for a way to keep his out- gunned Cougars from seizing up in front of the 72,027 red-clad Cornhusker fans expected in Memorial Stadium that day.

What he settled on was data overload.

By filling the minds of his players with everything he knew about Nebraska - from its offensive tendencies to the type of shoes its players wore - he had hoped to short-circuit any intimidation impulses their brains might transmit.

And the idea worked perfectly as the Cougars, seemingly oblivious to the enduring reputation of one of the country’s finest football programs, stunned the 15th-ranked Cornhuskers 19-10 behind Jack Thompson’s two touchdown passes to Brian Kelley.

“You might say it was a case of familiarity breeding ignorance, I guess,” Powers said earlier this week from his home in St. Louis, Mo., as he recalled the stunning developments of that Sept. 10 afternoon.

Adding to that familiarity was the fact that eight of his WSU assistants Dick Beechner (offensive line), Michael Church (linebackers), John Faiman (offensive line), Rich Glover (defensive), Jim Walden (offensive backs), Zaven Yaralian (secondary), Mark Heydorff (defensive ends) and Terry Luck (quarterbacks) - had either played or coached at Nebraska.

Current WSU coach Mike Price, who will take his Cougars into Memorial Stadium again this Saturday for an 11 a.m. (PDT) inter-sectional showdown with the No.2-ranked Cornhuskers, was also an assistant on Powers’ staff.

“We knew everything they were going to do offensively and defensively,” recalled Powers, who left WSU for Missouri the following year. “We didn’t have to guess, because they weren’t going to change that much in a year.”

Thompson, a junior at the time, hit Kelly with a 19-yard scoring pass in the second quarter and came back to his favorite target for a 20-yard third-quarter touchdown that put WSU up 14-7.

Nebraksa, which had fumbled the football away after driving to the Cougars’ 5-yard line on its opening possession, cut WSU’s lead to 14-10 on Billy Todd’s 14-yard field goal early in the fourth period.

But the Cougars answered with a 35-yard field goal by Paul Watson and later added a safety when George Yarno tackled UN quarterback Randy Garcia in the end zone.

Powers increased his edge in the familiarity department prior to the game by refusing to share spring-game flim with the Huskers.

“That really ticked Tom off,” he said. “I hated to do it, but we were on different sides, now, and I thought it was to our advantage for them not to have our films.

“Tom couldn’t understand that, but I told him we we’re just trying to hang on anyway we could. He probably knew he was going to win anyway.”

Thompson, who completed 18 of 30 passes for 174 yards, said the upset remains “amazing clear” in his mind, just like everything that Powers and his staff pounded into his brain prior to the game.

“I wasn’t scared at all,” recalled the Cougars’ all-time career passing leader. “And that’s a credit to Warren Powers. He had our team prepared like no other game I’ve ever been involved in.”

Thompson said Powers and his staff started helping his players visualize the Nebraska trip from the time he first set foot onthe WSU practice field that spring.

“He was already imprinting in our minds eye what it was going to be like, even back then,” Thompson explained. “He painted pictures with his words. He told us how we were going to go into that stadium and see 78,000 people, or however many, all dressed in red and how it would look like a sea of red.

“He even described the huge scoreboard at one end of the field and told us to envision it reading that we had won.”

As in Visitors 19, Nebraska 10?

“In my case, I was envisioning 42-0,” Thompson said. “I guess I kind of took it extremes.”

The Cougars ended up losing big everywhere but on the scoreboard. Nebraska outgained them 470 yards to 294 and ran up 24 first downs to the Cougars’ 14.

But the Cornhuskers fumbled three times inside WSU’s 10-yard line and the Cougars stayed turnover-free.

The only “critical” mistake WSU made was in pre-game warm-ups when Steve Kalinoski, a redshirt-freshman defensive tackle from Lewiston, ran onto the field late and lined up with Nebraska to do his stretching routine.

“What a crazy way to start a game against Nebraska,” Thompson recalled.

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