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Daniel has career night as Missouri crushes Nebraska

Oct 7, 2007 - 7:02 AM COLUMBIA, Missouri (Ticker) -- Chase Daniel turned in one of his best performances to lead Missouri to a huge win.

Daniel threw for a career-high 401 yards and and added two rushing touchdowns to lead No. 17 Missouri to a 41-6 victory over No. 25 Nebraska in a Big 12 Conference matchup on Saturday.

Daniel ran for a one-yard TD and threw a six-yard scoring pass to Chase Coffman in the first quarter as the Tigers opened a 14-0 lead.

"We played our game on a number of facets," Daniel said. "We had too many penalties, but you have to give credit to the coaches. They spent two weeks drawing up the game plan and we executed perfect. But it comes from up top, coach (Christensen) and coach Yost, coach Pinkel got in it a little with week. They had an unbelievable game plan."

Alex Henery kicked two field goals in the first half for Nebraska (4-2, 1-1 Big 12 North). The Cornhuskers had won eight straight against Big 12 North opponents but had that streak ended with their third straight road setback to the Tigers (5-0, 1-0 North).

Missouri is now 5-0 for the second straight season and Daniel is a huge reason why. He completed 31-of-46 passes for 401 yards and two TDs. His second rushing TD of the game made it 27-6 in the third quarter.

"(Daniel's) a competitor," Tigers wideout Jeremy Maclin said. "He's one of the best quarterbacks in the nation. We rally around him and when he's doing good, he's going to make us look good."

"He's an excellent quarterback, I had a chance to visit with him before the game and I told him I thought he was having a (heck) of a year," Huskers coach Bill Callahan said. "He has excellent control of what (Missouri) is trying to accomplish with their offense and that was pretty indicative."

Daniel threw a 48-yard TD pass to Danario Alexander in the third and Martin Rucker capped the scoring on a 10-yard TD run on a fake field goal in the fourth quarter.

Sam Keller was 23-of-41 for 200 yards and was intercepted once for Nebraska, which was outgained, 603-274.

"It's not our standard of football. ... certainly we can play better," Callahan said. "We are certainly not out of (the Big 12 North race)... it was a conference game that was important to us."