1983 Orange Bowl

Miami, Fla., Jan. 1, 1983--The 1983 Orange Bowl game between Nebraska and Louisiana State started out like the one-sided contest the oddsmakers had predicted. The Husker defense held the Tigers to three yards on three plays after the opening kickoff and forced a punt. Then the NU offense drove 51 yards in six plays to take a 7-0 lead on Mark Schellen's 2-yard run with 4:03 gone in the game.

At that point, Murphy's Law went into effect. On the first play after Toby Williams intercepted an LSU pass at the Husker seven, Nebraska fumbled the ball away to set up a tying Tiger TD. The Huskers fumbled the ball away at the LSU 15, forced a punt and fumbled it at their own 45 to set up another punt. Then the Huskers threw an interception and were thankful to be down only 14-7 at halftime.

The second half didn't start out any better as NU missed a field goal and fumbled again to set up a field goal that gave LSU a 17-7 lead. But down 10 points, the Husker offense came alive, driving 80 yards in 12 plays to score on an 11-yard pass from Turner Gill to Mike Rozier, and going 47 yards in seven plays to regain the lead, 21-17, early in the fourth quarter on a 1-yard run by Gill.

A dropped pass on a faked field goal prevented another score, and another interception set up an LSU field goal that cut the margin to 21-20. But the Husker offense sealed the win by eating up the final 5:05.

1983 Orange Bowl

Teams	1	2	3	4	Final
Nebraska	7	0	7	7	21
Louisiana St.	7	7	3	3	20

 

Statistics	NU	LSU
First Downs	22	12
Rushing, Net	219	38
Passes Att., Comp., Int.	30-14-2	23-13-2
Passing, Net	184	173
Total Offense	403	211

Scoring Summary
First Quarter
NU-Mark Schellen 5 run (Kevin Seibel kick), 10:57
LSU-Dalton Hilliard 1 run (Juan Betanzos kick), 4:24

Second Quarter
LSU-Hilliard 1 run (Bentanzos kick), 9:32

Third Quarter
LSU-FG Bentanzos 28, 6:40
NU-Mike Rozier 11 pass from Turner Gill (Seibel kick), 1:25

Fourth Quarter
NU-Gill 1 run (Seibel kick), 11:14
LSU-FG Bentanzos 49, 5:05