MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) - Nebraska quarterback Taylor Martinez rushed for 242 yards and four touchdowns Thursday night and the seventh-ranked Cornhuskers ended a 99-year rivalry with Kansas State in the same lopsided fashion it began, thrashing the slower, outmanned Wildcats 48-13.
Martinez, the redshirt freshman who has rushed for 737 yards in his first five games for the Huskers (5-0), also threw a 79-yard touchdown pass to Kyler Reed for a 38-6 lead in the third quarter. His rushing total broke Jammal Lord's Nebraska record for a quarterback and his four rushing TDs tied the team quarterback mark. He was replaced by Cody Green with almost 10 minutes left in the game.
Martinez finished 5-of-7 for 128 yards as the Huskers piled up 587 yards total offense in the Big 12 opener for both teams.
Daniel Thomas. a senior running back who was averaging 157 yards a game for the Wildcats (4-1), was held to 63 yards on 22 carries.
Kansas State did not have nearly enough quickness to keep up with Martinez and the Huskers. Roy Helu broke loose for a 68-yard TD run in a 21-point third quarter that made a rout of what could be the last game these two schools ever play. In a rousing start to their farewell Big 12 tour, the Huskers' shortest touchdown play was 14 yards.
Headed next year to the Big Ten, they said goodbye to Kansas State with a six-game winning streak that raised their overall record against the Wildcats to 78-15-2, a series they began in 1911 with a 59-0 blowout and dominated almost start to finish.
In one four-game stretch in the 1980s, Nebraska outscored Kansas State 183-9. So getting kicked around by Nebraska was nothing new to Kansas State fans who had hoped to send them out of the Big 12 with a loss.
But the Huskers had too much speed and too much Martinez. Their scoring drives in the third quarter covered 80 yards in three plays, 68 in one and 80 in two.
Kansas State's only TD came on a 2-yard pass on fourth down from Carson Coffman to Chris Harper late in the fourth quarter. Brodrick Smith, Kansas State's sophomore wide receiver, hurt his left leg on the third-down play and was taken off the field on a cart as play was stopped for several minutes.
Martinez got the Huskers rolling with a 14-yard TD run in the first quarter. In the second, he went around right end, the linebacker bit on the fake to the running back, and Martinez went 35 yards to the end zone. He made it 24-3 58 seconds into the third quarter when he burst up the middle through a big hole and raced 80 yards untouched.