The coach has been a font of second chances for his players.

Last Saturday morning in Lincoln, Neb., a pair of Nebraska

boosters greeted two friends who were about to be swept up in

the sea of Cornhusker red roiling its way toward Memorial

Stadium for the Huskers' first home game of the season.

"Game's been called off," one booster said. "Nobody can make

bail."

The Nebraska faithful have long been accustomed to laughers, but

rarely has the humor been of the gallows variety. The Huskers

were last year's national champions and are expected to extend

their NCAA record of 33 straight winning seasons. Last Saturday

the crowd of 75,418, the 202nd consecutive sellout at Memorial

Stadium, watched as the Cornhuskers thrashed Arizona State 77-28

behind two I-backs who each rushed for more than 100 yards. That

those backs were named Clinton Childs and Ahman Green--not

Lawrence Phillips and Damon Benning--was the only cloud over this

picture-perfect day, and the only obvious indication that all is

not well with Nebraska football.

On Sept. 12, Phillips, who had been regarded as a Heisman Trophy

candidate, pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor counts of

third-degree assault, trespassing and destruction of property,

all stemming from an alleged assault two days before on Nebraska

sophomore Kate McEwen, a former girlfriend who plays for the

Cornhusker women's basketball team. The evening after the

alleged incident, coach Tom Osborne announced that he had thrown

Phillips off the team, but he later amended that to say that

Phillips would be suspended indefinitely.

On Monday, Osborne said, "It's not as though Lawrence is an

angry young man all the time and a threat to society. But there

are occasions every four to five months where he becomes a

little explosive." Osborne added that Phillips might return in a

month--in time for the Oct. 28 game at Colorado, the most

daunting on the Husker schedule--if "medical people say some

significant changes have taken place."

Benning, Phillips's backup, was also sidelined last Saturday,

but only by a strained hamstring and not by the third-degree

assault citation against him for allegedly beating his

ex-girlfriend on the night of Sept. 9. Benning says he is not

guilty, and Osborne says he is convinced of Benning's innocence.

Prosecutors are weighing whether or not to press charges.

During Osborne's 23 years in Lincoln his program has escaped the

rampant lawlessness that has at times beset programs at Miami

and at Big Eight rivals Oklahoma and Colorado. But Osborne's

reactions to the Phillips and Benning arrests, and to other

recent criminal cases involving his players, raise the question

of whether he has gone so far in giving his players the benefit

of the doubt--and keeping them available to play--that he has

hampered the work of police and prosecutors.

"I don't tell Tom Osborne how to run the football department,"

Lancaster County Attorney Gary Lacey says, "and he should stay

out of the criminal justice system. He hasn't done that at all."

According to Lacey, Osborne has taken it upon himself to

interview witnesses in criminal cases, offered very public

opinions on the probable innocence of players who have yet to

stand trial and attacked the credibility of witnesses testifying

against his players. In January 1994 he and an assistant even

locked away a gun that had allegedly been used by one of his

players in the commission of a felony.

"That's Osborne using his influence to disrupt the criminal

justice system," Lacey says. "Osborne talks to witnesses.

Whether he tried to influence them or not ... someone with his

reputation would have an effect."

In four recent cases involving criminal charges against his

players, Osborne has aggressively rushed to their defense:

Riley Washington, a junior wingback, continues to practice with

the Cornhuskers despite having been charged with attempted

second-degree murder and use of a weapon to commit a felony in

connection with the Aug. 2 shooting of 22-year-old Jermaine Cole

at a Lincoln convenience store. Cole told Lincoln police that he

and Nebraska undergraduate assistant football coach Abdul

Muhammad were fighting when Washington pulled his gun and fired,

saying, "Your life is gone." On Sept. 11, two days before

Washington pleaded not guilty to both counts, Osborne said, "I

think there is a very, very good chance that Riley didn't do

what he's accused of. I've talked to a lot of people.... I feel

pretty comfortable about Riley's case."

On Sept. 13, Osborne told reporters, "At the preliminary

hearing, the primary witness against Riley, the individual who

was shot, indicated that Riley was wearing a polo shirt with

three buttons and a hat. Riley was wearing a T-shirt, entirely a

different color, and did not have a hat on. Another witness ...

could not identify Riley as the shooter."

Lacey told SI, "I didn't see Osborne at the preliminary hearing.

We had two witnesses say, 'Riley Washington shot Jermaine Cole.

I saw the gun. I saw him do it.'"

Why has Osborne involved himself so deeply in the Washington

affair? "Because I'm going to have to make a call on Riley, and

I can't wait until the case goes to trial in February," he says.

"If I keep him out, and it turns out he's innocent, he will have

lost a whole year. On the other hand, if I let him play, and

later he's found guilty, that wouldn't be good either. What was

I supposed to do?"

Tyrone Williams, a senior cornerback, was charged in March 1994

with two felonies--unlawful discharge of a firearm and use of a

weapon to commit a felony--in connection with a Jan. 30, 1994,

shooting. Police say that Williams fired two shots into a car

occupied by former New York Jet safety Kevin Porter, who was in

town visiting friends. Porter was not hit. After the shooting,

but before Williams was charged, then-Nebraska assistant Kevin

Steele was given Williams's .22 caliber revolver. Then Steele

and Osborne locked the gun in a cabinet.

"When the chief of police and I learned that a gun wanted in

connection with a felony shooting was in Osborne's possession

when it should have been immediately turned over to the police,

then you have evidence that is being withheld," Lacey says.

When his actions came to light, Osborne said, "Frankly, if

anybody had asked, we would have given it to them sooner. No

charges had been filed, so we didn't think anybody was anxious

about it." Osborne has said all along that he notified campus

police about the gun. Last week Osborne conceded in an interview

with SI that prosecutors were probably looking for the gun at

the time he filed it away. "The weapon was missing when we asked

[Williams] to get it. If we hadn't made him give us the gun, the

police might never have gotten it."

Williams pleaded not guilty. His lawyer is awaiting a ruling on

a motion to drop one of the charges. Meanwhile, he is playing, a

fact Osborne defends by noting that since Williams was raised by

his grandmother, the athletic department has taken a parental

role in supporting him.

Christian Peter, a senior defensive tackle, was sentenced to 18

months probation in May 1994 after he pleaded no contest to a

charge of third-degree sexual assault brought by a former Miss

Nebraska, Natalie Kuijvenhoven, who was then a Nebraska student.

According to Osborne, Kuijvenhoven's lawyer contacted him about

Peter, and Osborne says he suggested that all the

parties--including Peter--meet in his office at the athletic

department. But Kuijvenhoven would have none of it. "It's clear

Osborne was trying to intimidate me in order to get rid of me

before a trial would ever happen," Kuijvenhoven told SI. Osborne

says he has never pressured a witness.

Osborne says that Peter, a Cornhusker captain, has been "a model

guy" since completing a private program that no one at Nebraska

can discuss in any detail.

Senior wide receiver Reggie Baul was charged last Nov. 20 with

stealing a wallet from a woman in a Lincoln restaurant. Hal

Anderson, the lawyer who represented him, hired a retired

policeman to administer a lie detector test to Baul. According

to Osborne, Baul passed the test. Osborne then permitted him to

play in the Orange Bowl victory over Miami that clinched

Nebraska's national title. On March 6, Baul pleaded guilty to a

misdemeanor charge of possession of stolen property. He was

fined $100 and placed on six months probation. He remains a

member of the team.

According to police, sometime after 4 a.m. on Sept. 10, the

night the Huskers returned from a rout of Michigan State in East

Lansing, Phillips entered the third-floor apartment of Scott

Frost, a quarterback from Wood River, Neb., who had transferred

to Nebraska this fall from Stanford. When Phillips found McEwen

in the apartment, police say, he pushed her into the bathroom,

knocked her down and dragged her by the hair down a flight of

stairs.

At 11 a.m. last Thursday, McEwen walked into Lacey's office

after returning from her home in Topeka, Kans. That day Lacey

interviewed her for the first time, three days after Osborne had

spoken with her. Early in the week Osborne had said, "I wouldn't

call it a beating. But [Phillips] certainly did inflict some

damage to a young lady."

It is clear that Osborne had been aware for some time that

Phillips might be trouble. In March 1994 he was alleged to have

grabbed a student from another college around the neck.

Misdemeanor charges were dropped after he agreed to pay $400 to

repair a necklace that was broken, though he failed to complete

a mandated diversion program.

On Sunday the Omaha World-Herald reported that what had

allegedly taken place in Frost's apartment apparently resulted

from a long, troubled relationship between McEwen and Phillips,

and that friends of McEwen's had seen signs of physical abuse.

The paper also reported that according to one of those friends,

Osborne was aware of violence in the relationship and had urged

Phillips and McEwen to stop seeing each other. This summer, the

World-Herald asserted, Osborne had warned Phillips, "If you ever

touch her again, you will be kicked off the team."

Osborne does not recall using those exact words, but he had no

choice but to suspend Phillips. "He tends to believe anything

these kids tell him," says Joe Nigro, of the Lancaster County

public defender's office. "The problem with Phillips is that it

happened at Scott Frost's apartment, and Scott talked to

[Osborne] before Lawrence talked to him. He has to believe

someone."

For discipline, Osborne assigns players five points each, and

they keep playing until they lose their points. Cutting class

costs one point on the Osborne scale; a felony conviction costs

five. Skipping a practice is three points, and committing a

criminal misdemeanor is four. And he has been a font of second

chances for players and ex-players, including Muhammad, whose

eligibility is up but who has retained his scholarship and works

as an undergraduate coach. Muhammad was involved in a fight at a

Lincoln hotel last year in which Nebraska defensive back Ramone

Worthy was stabbed. "My feeling is Abdul can do more good on the

field than he can simply drifting around the community," Osborne

says.

Osborne says he is also inclined to grant a second chance to

Phillips: "If Lawrence is in a structured program, he's more apt

to get treatment than if we cut him loose."

Say this for Osborne: He knows his student-athletes aren't all

choirboys. As the Husker plane landed in Lincoln on the night

Phillips allegedly beat McEwen, Osborne told his players over

the intercom, "Have a nice night, but stay out of trouble."

COLOR PHOTO: IAN DOREMUS/JOURNAL STAR Implacable as always, Osborne has offered no apologies for the way he has dealt with his miscreants. [Tom Osborne ] COLOR PHOTO: TRAVIS HEYING/DAILY NEBRASKAN Phillips was arraigned on three charges two days after Osborne suspended him from the team. [Lawrence Phillips] COLOR PHOTO: TRAVIS HEYING/DAILY NEBRASKAN Osborne prefers Muhammad in the program rather than on the streets. [Abdul Muhammad]

Osborne says Phillips may be back for the Colorado game.

The coach has been a font of second chances for his players.