PASADENA, Calif. — Eric Crouch's Nebraska career ended with a few flashy runs and broken tackles, but nowhere near enough of them.
Crouch zigged and zagged through hit after hit from top-ranked Miami, desperately trying to lead the Cornhuskers to a miracle comeback to cap his Heisman Trophy winning season. But a 34-0 deficit against top-ranked Miami was too much, even for Crouch.
"It really hurts to lose this football game," he said.
Crouch finished his final game with 114 yards on 22 carries. Not bad, but not nearly enough to overcome the Hurricanes (12-0), who won 37-14. He also had an interception that was returned for a touchdown and a fumble that led to another.
"That's a credit to the type of defense that they had," he said. "They didn't have very many breakdowns. They really played a great football game."
Nebraska (11-2) certainly didn't. The Huskers failed to back up a month's worth of boasting that they belonged in the Bowl Championship Series title game and lost consecutive games for the first time since the 1990 season.
The Hurricanes outgained the Huskers 472-259 and had a shutout going until late in the third quarter.
"They shut down our running game and they put us in a lot of situations where it was third-and-long," Crouch said. "They're a very fast defense and they made very good plays."
Crouch was just 5-of-15 for 61 yards passing as the Huskers finished with nearly 200 fewer yards than their average. Dahrran Diedrick gained just 47 yards on 15 carries.
His final game marked the first time since Crouch's sophomore year that he didn't score or pass for a touchdown.
In 3 1/2-years as a starter, Crouch's 59 rushing touchdowns are 10 more than any other major-level college quarterback. He also is Nebraska's leader in total yards (7,195) and rushing yards by a quarterback (3,434). His 95-yard touchdown run Sept. 29 against Missouri was the longest in school history.
"I've had a tremendous career here at Nebraska," he said. "Now you're not putting on the uniform. You're not responsible for making plays for this team anymore, and that will be the hard thing to adjust to."
Nebraska's fans, about two-thirds of the capacity crowd of 93,781, had little to cheer for other than first downs until Judd Davies' 16-yard TD run with 2:39 left in the third quarter.
DeJuan Groce added a 71-yard punt return for a score early in the fourth quarter, prompting chants of "Go Big Red," but there wasn't enough time to overcome the deficit.
"We didn't play them well enough to make it a competitive game at the end," Nebraska coach Frank Solich said. "I think any football team would have trouble staying with them the way they played tonight."