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Jake Trotter
Nebraska’s dominance became undeniable — and quarterback Tommie Frazier, unforgettable — on a play called 32 option.
Following his pulling right guard and fullback to the right, Frazier ducked underneath a Florida defensive end late in the third quarter of the 1995 national championship.
Frazier slipped past one tackle attempt. Then a second. And a third. Finally, a trio of Gators appeared to have him corralled 12 yards downfield. But Frazier kept chopping his feet.
He ran over linebacker Ben Hanks. Shook off the grasp of safety Lawrence Wright. Then evaded the diving attempt by cornerback Fred Weary.
All told, nine Gators got a hand on Frazier. None could bring him down.
«They assumed he was tackled and wasn’t going anywhere,» said then-Nebraska coach Tom Osborne. «Then he came out of the pile. We had a lot of good runs, but that was the most impressive one I can remember.»
Thirty years later, Frazier’s improbable, 75-yard touchdown dash in the Cornhuskers’ 62-24 Fiesta Bowl rout of Florida remains iconic.
The play defined the dynasty Osborne built during the 1990s at Nebraska — and cemented Frazier’s place as the most prolific option quarterback in college football history.
«A lot of teams out there have had better players,» Frazier said. «But I don’t think any other team was more dominant than us.»
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By 1994, it had become Frazier’s team. And he wasn’t afraid to challenge older teammates.
«There’s leaders who are liked, and there’s leaders who aren’t liked but respected,» Frazier said. «My job wasn’t to be the most liked. I wanted to be the most respected. If you’ve got multiple guys making mistakes over and over, you’re not going to win championships — and my only goal was to win championships.»
Ed Stewart, a senior All-America linebacker in 1994, remembered Frazier once calling him out for having only three tackles in a game.
«I’ll never forget getting so pissed off thinking, ‘Who do you think you’re talking to, man?'» Stewart said. «It was a good little boost of motivation. That’s just how Tommie was. He was a competitor, and he didn’t care that he was a youngster talking to an upperclassman.»
Offensive tackle Zach Wiegert, the 1994 Outland Trophy winner, once interrupted as Frazier was calling a play.
«Tommie is like, ‘Shut the f— up, this is my huddle,'» Benning said. «To command the huddle as a pup with some serious alphas around him let everybody know there was something different about this guy when it comes to leadership and intangibles.»
But a month into the 1994 season, Frazier began feeling sore behind his right knee. He played only nine snaps in an easy win over Pacific. The next morning, he couldn’t walk. Trainers took him to the emergency room, where doctors discovered a blood clot.
«That was a scary moment,» Frazier said, «for a young kid who’s 1,600 miles away from home not having his parents around.»
Frazier didn’t know when he’d be able to play again. Osborne wasn’t sure if his star quarterback would ever play again.
WITH FRAZIER SIDELINED indefinitely, Brook Berringer took over at quarterback, and the Huskers kept rolling. They finished the regular season 12-0, setting up a showdown against Miami in the Orange Bowl for the national championship.
Frazier, meanwhile, was cleared to rejoin the team, leaving Osborne with a dilemma at quarterback.
«It was a very delicate situation,» Stewart said. «The potential recipe for disaster.»
Osborne decided to hold a scrimmage in Miami. Whoever graded out the best would start, though both would get the chance to play.
«I don’t know anybody who could run an organization as fairly as Coach Osborne did,» said All-America center Aaron Graham. «It was simply, I’m not going to decide this. You guys are going to decide this.»
Frazier had gained almost 20 pounds from not being able to work out while recovering. Though he hadn’t played in two months, Frazier shone in the scrimmage. He didn’t even wear a different colored jersey to keep from getting hit.
«It was incredible,» Benning said. «He clearly should have been rusty. But he didn’t miss a beat. He was so at ease with the competition.»
Frazier earned the start. Berringer replaced him for the second and third quarters, but Frazier returned for the fourth, with the Huskers trailing 17-9.
Miami All-American Warren Sapp tried to get in Frazier’s head, asking him where he’d been all game.
«It’s not where I’ve been, fat ass,» Frazier responded. «It’s where I’m going.»
The Huskers scored two touchdowns to rally for the win, lifting Osborne to his first national title.
«Tommie hung in there while he was out and stayed engaged mentally,» Osborne said. «It was pretty remarkable how he came back.»
IN 1995, A week after routing Michigan State, Nebraska led Arizona State 63-21 — at halftime.
Then-Sun Devils quarterback Jake Plummer would later share with Graham — as teammates with the Arizona Cardinals — what it was like in the Arizona State halftime locker room.
«They were all sitting in front of their lockers, moping, heads down,» Graham recalled Plummer telling him. «One of his teammates stood up and said, ‘We got this.’ And everybody looked at him like, ‘No, we don’t. We ain’t fighting against that. We don’t even want to go back out there.'»
Again, Frazier faced an opponent from his home state for the national title, this time against Steve Spurrier’s upstart Fun ‘n’ Gun Gators, who led the nation in passing. ESPN’s Lee Corso picked Florida to win 31-28, noting Nebraska’s power running game would bog down on grass.
«[Spurrier] was a fiery guy who had confidence, and that flowed down to their players,» Frazier said. «But we knew they weren’t going to be ready for us.»
Leading up to kickoff, the buoyant Gators chomped their arms at the Huskers.
«I look to my left and Tommie is smiling at me,» Graham said. «The feeling was, you have no idea what’s getting ready to hit you.»
On the opening drive, Osborne scripted a variety of running plays with different blocking schemes out of multiple formations to see what would work against the Gators.
«They couldn’t stop anything,» Frazier said. «So we were like, let’s just run right at them.»
By halftime, the Huskers led 35-10.
«We killed them up front,» said Nebraska wingback Clester Johnson. «They didn’t have an answer for our physicality. You can’t imitate the line of scrimmage in practice.»
Nebraska rushed for an FBS bowl record 524 yards. Defensively, the Huskers intercepted quarterback Danny Wuerffel three times, including a pick-six, and had seven sacks, including a safety.
The outcome was no longer in doubt when Osborne called 32 option. And still, it became the signature play of the game — and the defining image of Frazier’s career.
«How many tackles can one man break!?» Jim Nantz bellowed over the broadcast as Frazier glided in for the score with a smile on his face.
«You keep going until you hear the whistle,» said Frazier, who finished with a career-high 199 rushing yards. «I didn’t hear the whistle.»
MONTHS LATER, FRAZIER’S football career was over.
«The rest of my life started a little earlier,» he said. «And life has been great.»
After stints in business and coaching, Frazier found a second calling running Novel Care, which helps people in Nebraska and Iowa with intellectual disabilities and brain injuries live independently.
«We give people an opportunity to live a successful life even though they have major challenges,» Frazier said. «Show them that people care.»
For several years, Frazier avoided Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium, opting to watch the Huskers at his Omaha home instead. But this season, he found himself back more often — his daughter, Ava, is now a Nebraska cheerleader.
To this day, fans still bring up the run, which he finds amusing.
«To me, it was just another play,» he said. «If it had happened in any other game, it wouldn’t have had the life it had.»
But it did take on a life. And 30 years later, 32 option still signifies the era when Nebraska owned the trenches and won championships — behind a quarterback who refused to go down.
