LINCOLN, Neb. -- Heartbreak comes in one basic color for the University of Colorado football team. So do curses, spells, hexes, bad vibes, worse karma and losses to Nebraska that now have plummeted past sadly improbable to eerily inexplicable.
With 47 seconds to play Friday in suddenly hushed Memorial Stadium, the bad-luck Buffs led the Cornhuskers by one point. CU sensed a win -- its first in Lincoln since 1990 -- and many disbelieving Nebraska fans leaving the stadium had accepted defeat.
Their exit, as well as a long-sought CU victory, was premature.
Quarterback Eric Crouch drove the No. 9 Huskers 47 yards in 44 seconds, allowing Josh Brown to kick a 29-yard field goal on the game's final play to beat the Buffs 34-32. Including 1999's 33-30 overtime defeat in Boulder, CU has lost its past five games against Nebraska by a total of 15 points.
Said Buffs junior offensive tackle Victor Rogers: "It almost feels like we're cursed against those guys, and this has been going on long before I got here."
On a clear, crisp Friday in a howling stadium where the only acceptable attire is red, the spell appeared to have been broken. Shaking off a frazzled first quarter, freshman quarterback Craig Ochs hit receiver John Minardi with a 15-yard touchdown pass to pull CU to 31-30 with 47 seconds remaining.
Ochs then pushed the Buffs ahead 32-31 with a two-point conversion pass to senior receiver Javon Green. Explaining the bold decision, CU coach Gary Barnett said, "I wanted to win it. We didn't come here to tie and go into overtime ... It didn't take me even an instant to even consider not going for two."
But after successfully executing the most significant play in a season turned sour, CU accomplished the unthinkable. Kicking specialist Mark Mariscal was instructed to boot a "deep squib" rather than kicking into or out of the end zone. His low kick was fielded by front man Dahrran Diedrick at the Nebraska 29-yard line and returned to the 41 -- giving the Huskers a short field to traverse with only a field goal required to win.
Crouch needed seven plays to put Brown in range -- and the Buffs in another state of Big Red shock. Barnett explained his strategy in ordering the "deep squib:"
"We wanted to kick it down the middle and make them return it and take time off of the clock. The clock starts when they catch the ball. Make them take time on the return, rather than give them the full time. But if you are going to kick it to them like we did, then we might as well have done anything other than that."
Nebraska coach Frank Solich said the Huskers were half expecting a squib kick and had instructed Diedrick & Co. to field the ball and "get as much (yardage) as you can, but work your way to the sideline and try to get out of bounds. Those are tough kicks to field."
But this one wasn't. It went to Diedrick as if they were related. Mariscal, who missed four of five field-goal attempts (two were blocked), said his kickoff "took a bounce left and went right to the return man. It was supposed to bounce away from him ... It didn't work out very well."
On five previous Mariscal kickoffs, Nebraska opened at its 20-, 23-, 25-, 25-, and 28-yard lines -- meaning the Huskers' starting field position for the game's most critical drive was their best of the game after a kickoff.
Asked if kicking deep would have been preferable, Mariscal answered, "I don't know. I don't make the calls. I'm not a coach; they thought it would be best. They didn't want a big return."
But that's what CU's strategy produced. Brown's second field goal of the afternoon (he had one attempt blocked) gave the Huskers their first victory on a game's final play since records were first kept in 1960. The previous time Nebraska won with a field goal was in 1998, when Kris Brown (no relation) hit a 25-yarder to beat CU 16-14.
For CU, which finished 3-8 overall (3-5 in the Big 12 Conference), the loss overshadowed stellar offensive performances by junior tailback Cortlen Johnson (26 carries, a season-high 155 yards, three touchdowns), Ochs (25-for-41 passing, 254 yards, one TD, two interceptions) and Minardi (six catches, 85 yards, one TD).
Ochs, who completed 21 of his last 30 passes for 235 yards and a score, admitted to being "too wired" for much of the first quarter. His first pass was intercepted by Huskers linebacker Carlos Polk and returned 39 yards for a touchdown. CU fell behind 14-0 after a 27-yard TD run by Crouch (20 carries, 125 yards, three TDs) after Mariscal's first blocked field-goal attempt.
The Buffs produced only three points from two Huskers turnovers and a blocked punt in the first half and trailed 14-10 at intermission. The lead changed five times, with one tie (24-24) in the second half until Brown's kick saved the Huskers (9-2, 6-2).
Brown said when his foot hit the ball, "everybody went crazy. It's definitely how I pictured it in a dream. I don't know who got me first, but (teammates) tackled me to the ground."
Mariscal, meanwhile, was left mostly alone. "I had a terrible day," he said. "Probably the worst day in the history of CU kicking ... Against Nebraska you can't give up six points on two misses and 12 possibly. You just can't do that."
Johnson, who reinjured his sprained toe on his second scoring run, couldn't explain the Buffs' near-misses and complete misery against the Huskers.
"Right now, they have this mystique over us," he said. "We haven't found a way to pull it out yet ... But times are changing."
Contact B.G. Brooks at (303) 892-5466 or sports@RockyMountainNews.com.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]