Credit where credit's due

Why has it become so hard in sports to give the other team credit for something?

Your team loses and it's because the players gave the game away. Or your team had some bad luck. Or there were some fluky plays. And, of course, the refs/officials/umps screwed us.

This comes up in the wake of the narrow but significant victories the Iowa State and Iowa football teams posted over the weekend.

Iowa State came up with eight turnovers in a 9-7 victory at Nebraska -- the Cyclones' first win in Lincoln in 32 years. If Florida or Alabama or even Nebraska had eight takeaways, fans and pundits would be slobbering all over themselves about the great defense they played.

Case in point: Alabama defensive lineman Terrence Cody -- who has all of 17 tackles this year (and no sacks) -- blocked two kicks to help preserve the Tide's 12-10 win over Tennessee and now he's being talked about in some circles as a Heisman Trophy candidate.

Iowa State gets eight turnovers and it's a fluke. The Cyclones got lucky. Nebraska shot itself in the foot. One NU fan said the Cornhuskers had to give Iowa State the game for the Cyclones to win it.

OK, when Nebraska receiver Miles Paul loses the ball as he headed to the end zone, maybe that's a fluke. But ISU safety James Smith never gave up on the play and that's why he was in position to recover the ball when it squirted from Paul's grasp like a wet trout.

As for the other turnovers, it sure looked like the Cyclones created them. They punched the ball away or simply wrested it from Nebraska runners. Say what you want about interceptions off tipped balls, but somebody on the defense has to be in position to tip it. And how about the hops 6-foot, 234-pound linebacker Jesse Smith showed when he jumped to make that last interception? He got it because he was in the right place.

One Nebraska player lamented, ``Luck's not going our way right now.'' But just who was the unlucky team? Iowa State played without its starting quarterback and running back, several players were puking in buckets because they were sick and defensive back Ter'ran Benton went out in the first half with a broken leg. Now that's bad luck.

You've got to hand it to Nebraska coach Bo Pelini, though, because he made no excuses. He told reporters he didn't want to say the Cornhuskers beat themselves because that would discredit what Iowa State did.

Still, the Huskers might want to put in just a wee bit more time on ball security drills.

As for Iowa's 15-13 win at Michigan State, Ricky Stanzi's last-play touchdown pass to Marvin McNutt made all the highlight shows and deservedly so.

But if Florida's Tim Tebow had done that, oh my gosh. It would have been his Heisman moment. Touchdown Timmy does it again. We would have heard about it from now until the ceremony.

Iowa pulls it off and well, the Hawkeyes are barely scraping by. That was a bad call when the MSU defensive back was flagged for holding just before intercepting a pass on the final drive. The Spartans weren't in the right kind of defense. And so and so on.

Check the replay and yes, Michigan State had no defenders in the middle of the end zone. Once McNutt got inside position, his defender was toast. But how about giving McNutt credit for getting in that position and some kudos to Stanzi for his quick read in recognizing the situation.

What's wrong with saying, ``You know, those other guys made some great plays. That's why they won.''

Is that so hard to admit?