Of all the games that I saw at OU, the one game that I saw which inspired absolute awe was the Nebraska game of 1973. This was the first year that Switzer was the coach, and we had become accustomed to winning big with high-scoring wishbone teams. But, this was also a rebuilding year. We started 12 sophomores. But, two of those sophomores were named LeRoy and Dewey, and they had figured out their positions as they flanked Lucious. OU had re-discovered defense, and this was an impenetrable line.
Although OU and Nebraska had been in the hunt for #1 for three and four years now, Nebraska was only #10. OU was #3 after a tie at USC in which we dominated everything except the scoreboard. Nebraska had scored about 28 points per game, which meant that they were one of the better offenses around. But, on this day, finding a place to run or throw was more unlikely than finding a lake in Death Valley. At halftime, Humm's Huskers had three first downs, and it seemed that they had been held much more firmly in check than that.
They crossed midfield exactly once in the entire game on a thirty-yard pass play that got it inside the thirty-five. But, they fumbled on the next play, and Humm was content to try to survive the pass rush of the Selmons. He didn't.
The final score was 27-0. But, it wasn't that close. It was the only OU shutout of the year, but it was such a dominant performance that you wondered how anyone ever scored on OU.
