Five days after James Brown had opened his mouth, he waited silently on the Texas sideline, watching officials stretch the chain across the artificial turf, two inches past the nose of the football.

Fourth down. 2:30 left in the first Big 12 championship game.

Texas 30, Nebraska 27.

Without hesitation or a timeout, John Mackovic calls the play. His quarterback isn't surprised.

Mackovic had told Brown he'd watched Nebraska on film. He'd seen the mighty Blackshirts send everybody at the middle of the pile on short-yardage downs.

Mackovic felt strongly one play, if the game was on the line, would work.

“Roll left.”

The Horns hurry to the line of scrimmage. Texas radio announcers predict Texas will try to draw Nebraska offside, then punt. Tom Osborne thinks so, too.

Brown, three backs behind him in the I, barely settles under center when — snap!

He fakes a handoff to Priest Holmes as Grant Wistrom and a bevy of Huskers penetrate the backfield. He scoots left, gets a block from Ricky Williams and spots Derek Lewis.

Wide open.

Nebraska loses — its first conference game since 1992, a shot at a third straight national championship.

Thirteen years later, Wistrom, who lost two games in four years at NU, tries to piece together memories. It was a long time ago. Details elude him, he says.

But he remembers this: “I still hate Texas.”

Unflappable

James Brown went 22-2 as a high school quarterback in Beaumont, Texas. He was the top-ranked prep QB in the state.

In 1994, just minutes before the Oklahoma game, Mackovic told Brown the regular quarterback couldn't play. Brown had to start. He completed 17 of 22 and led a second-half rally to beat OU.

In December 1996, a lot of people in college football were scared of Nebraska. James Brown wasn't one of them.

Monday before the Big 12 championship game, just three days after he'd passed for 344 yards on rival Texas A&M, media congregated to talk about the big game in St. Louis.

Scribe after scribe implied that unranked Texas, a 21-point underdog, was going to get creamed.

Nebraska's first-team defense had given up two total touchdowns since a September loss at Arizona State. The Huskers ranked top five nationally in every major defensive category. They had 49 sacks...

Brown couldn't take it anymore.

“I think we're going to win by three touchdowns,” he said.

He didn't stop there:

“To sack me, they're going to have to catch me.”

“Nebraska tries to intimidate people. They've got to beat me to intimidate me.”

Mackovic, who told his players to “never give ammunition away for free,” followed Brown out of the media luncheon. Coach knew those words would soon be displayed prominently in every Blackshirt locker. He was ticked.

“James, I hope you can back up what you said!”

NU's troubles

Three days later, George Darlington was still fuming when he spoke to the Big Red Breakfast.

“Basically, Texas has walked up to little Nebraska lying there sunning on the beach and kicked sand in its face,” said the NU secondary coach. “Hopefully we will respond in kind.”

That week, Nebraska was one game from the Sugar Bowl, where it would play No. 1 Florida State. A win there, combined with an Arizona State loss in the Rose Bowl (Ohio State did beat ASU a month later), would propel NU to a third straight national championship.

But Tom Osborne had more immediate concerns.

The offense had struggled much of the season. Ahman Green was out with a stress fracture in his toe. Damon Benning was hurt, too. That left freshman DeAngelo Evans, battling a nagging groin injury, to carry the load.

On defense, Terrell Farley, NU's best linebacker, had been kicked off the team in mid-November, forcing defensive coordinator Charlie McBride to juggle the lineup. He moved rover Mike Minter to weakside linebacker, and free safety Eric Stokes to rover.

Worse, Nebraska's defense was tired. It had just capped the regular season with a gritty performance against No. 5 Colorado.

Worse, a flu bug was passing through the locker room. It's hard to quantify sickness, but Stokes lost 14 pounds the week prior to the Texas game. He was one of about 20 players fighting the bug.

Holding up a bottle of flu medication, Darlington told the Big Red Breakfast 53 hours prior to kickoff: “Maybe the key to winning Saturday is in this little vial.”

New wrinkles

Mack had big plans that season. Texas started in the top 10 after a Sugar Bowl appearance in 1995. But the Horns started 3-4 before running off four straight wins.

“We were a much better team than our record,” Mackovic said. “In November, we were very good.”

Mackovic had the Big 12's top offense, but he knew he needed a few surprises to beat the Blackshirts.

New blocking schemes to slow down Wistrom and Jared Tomich. Quick drops to get the ball out of Brown's hands. And, most important, a heavy dose of Holmes on the counter sweep.

Ricky Williams had rushed for 1,265 yards in 1996, his sophomore year. Holmes had only 204. But they usually played together in the backfield, split apart in a pro set. Mackovic saw opportunities for Holmes.

“When you put things in like that,” Mackovic said this week, “you don't really know if they're going to work.”

On the first drive, Texas marched 80 yards in 11 plays. Holmes scored the first rushing touchdown against Nebraska's first-string defense all season.

Game on.

Evans scored. 7-7.

Then 10-7, Texas. Then 10-10.

Holmes, 61-yard dash on the counter trap. 17-10.

Evans, 23-yard burst. 17-17.

20-17, Texas. Then 23-17.

Starting free safety Eric Warfield had to leave with a head injury. Stokes, still carrying a 102-degree fever, was kneeling on the sideline every free moment.

“We were so thin back there that it was ridiculous,” Stokes would say later.

Evans again, 24-23 Huskers.

27-23 after a Kris Brown field goal.

Nebraska's defense took the field with 10:11 left.

Brown dropped back from his 34 and saw Wane McGarity in single coverage. He lofted a spiral deep. Minter leaped, stretched his arm and just missed the deflection.

Touchdown Horns. Afterward, Minter called it the turning point.

Nebraska drove to the Texas 34 before getting stuffed on third-and-short. Punt.

One Texas first down, then three short gains, then fourth-and-inches.

“I did not consider it a gamble,” Mackovic said this week. “I had done my own homework that week. It wasn't something I pulled out of a hat.”

When Ralph Brown, NU's freshman corner, saw no Texas receivers on the short side of the field, he abandoned his post and lined up as another inside linebacker.

McBride saw it from the sideline and thought, “What's he doing?”

James Brown faked the dive to Holmes.

“I thought for sure I tackled him for no gain and it was over,” Wistrom said. “Next thing I know, (Brown) pops up and throws the pass. And it's like, ‘Oh crap. What happened?'”

Ralph Brown wasn't there to cover the tight end. The play gained 60 yards. The Horns scored on the next play. They won 37-27.

At day's end, Nebraska had run 87 plays to Texas' 57. Nebraska held the ball for 40 minutes. But Texas punted just once.

“Never in my dreams did I think we would have 503 yards of total offense against what I consider the best defense in America,” Mackovic said.

“We probably made as many mistakes as we did the whole season,” McBride said. “We just kind of fell apart.”

It was Osborne's last loss.

Defining moment

It was James Brown's defining moment. He threw for 353 yards. Not once did he get sacked.

Brown struggled his senior year, then played in outposts like British Columbia (CFL), San Jose (Arena) and Scotland (NFL Europe). Now he coaches at Lamar University.

“If somebody recognizes I'm James Brown, 80 percent of the time they connect it to that fourth-down play,” he said Wednesday.

Brown remembers calmly sitting in the locker room for 30 minutes after the Nebraska win. Teammates sprayed water bottles like champagne, but Brown was still in a zone.

Had Brown played every game with the same focus, the same fire, who knows what he could've done in his career?

Why, James? Why that game?

“I opened my mouth,” he says. “I had to back it up.”

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