Wake Forest

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Sam Keller nearly gave away the game during his first road start for Nebraska. Zack Bowman jumped up to take it back for the Cornhuskers. Three plays after Keller threw an interception deep in Nebraska territory, Bowman intercepted a Wake Forest pass in the end zone and the 16th-ranked Cornhuskers held on to win, 20-17, on Saturday. "Sometimes you're going to have to come away with a character win, and we did that today," Keller said. "Somebody had to step up, and we did.

Wake Forest chose Dino Gaudio to succeed the late Skip Prosser on Wednesday, entrusting the Demon Deacons' program to the veteran coach's longtime top assistant. Athletic Director Ron Wellman introduced Gaudio as the new coach during a news conference. Gaudio, who had been Wake Forest's associate head coach since 2002, received a five-year contract.

Skip Prosser, 56, Wake Forest basketball coach, died Thursday in Winston-Salem, N.C., the university said, without releasing details. The Winston-Salem Journal reported on its website that Prosser collapsed at his office on campus and died later at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Prosser spent six seasons with the Demon Deacons, winning an Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season title in 2003 and reaching the NCAA tournament in his first four seasons.

WERE Michael Longley from any other country but Ireland, he'd be long considered a great poet. He's fully formed and has a rich body of work, but almost no one has heard of him in America. With contemporaries like Heaney, and predecessors like Yeats and Synge, Irish who are merely major figures have trouble breaking into the international mind. Longley has much to say about being Irish, especially about the Troubles, but he sees war as the common enemy to both sides.

For much of the Orange Bowl, the high-powered Louisville Cardinals were stalled in neutral. They blew a field goal, lost two fumbles and dropped a potential touchdown pass. But despite the rash of mistakes, there was no stopping the Cardinals from their first major-bowl victory in 15 years. Anthony Allen scored two touchdowns, one on a trick play, and Brian Brohm threw for 311 yards to lead Louisville past Wake Forest, 24-13, on Tuesday night.

Wake Forest's defensive players huddled near the sideline, pushing and shoving, yelling and screaming, jumping and dancing. They were trailing Georgia Tech by three points and ready to do something about it. Riley Swanson did. Swanson intercepted a pass from Reggie Ball on the next play, sparking a comeback that gave Wake Forest its first Atlantic Coast Conference championship in 36 years and sent the Demon Deacons to their most significant bowl game in school history.

CIARAN CARSON is one of the most accomplished among the astonishing number of formidable poets who have issued from Ulster over the last three generations. In his elegy on the death of Yeats, Auden mused that "mad Ireland stung him into poetry." Northern Ireland, where that madness has lingered longest, more recently has prodded artists like Seamus Heaney, Paul Muldoon, Medbh McGuckian, Frank Ormsby and Carson into stunning poems and wonderfully readable translations.