Lincoln, Neb. – Nebraska certainly has most of the trappings of being a big-time football powerhouse again. There’s the obscenely lavish weight room that replaces the old, merely lavish weight room. There’s the gargantuan scoreboard, the big-time quarterback, the championship.
That’s a fine foundation for a return to glory. However, this is Nebraska we’re talking about, not Army. No Nebraska fan is waiting in line to touch the Big 12 North Division championship trophy.
While the Cornhuskers’ win total has made steady progress in Bill Callahan’s three years, they’re still missing one thing. They do not have that signature win, the one that knocks the national title picture out of whack, not to mention people’s outlook on Nebraska. Under Callahan, Nebraska is 4-6 against ranked teams, but against teams in the top 10, the games that change programs, he’s 0-5.
“We just need that one big game where we just push over and we become one of the big dogs that someone else has to beat,” senior linebacker Corey McKeon said. “It takes one quick game to do that.”
Nebraska has that one game. No, it’s not Saturday. The Cornhuskers host Nevada at 1:30 p.m. MDT in their season opener, then visit Wake Forest.
On Sept. 15, though, Nebraska has a chance to get back into the national spotlight when USC will likely arrive No. 1 in the country with what coach Pete Carroll says is his best team. USC is one of the nation’s best road teams with a Heisman Trophy candidate at quarterback – again – and a terrific linebacking corps.
But USC hasn’t visited Lincoln since 1969.
“It kind of felt like we went into their place trying to feel it out a little too much,” McKeon said of his team’s 28-10 loss last season. “You could see it when you watch the game: guys feeling it out, kind of wondering. But the confidence got built in that game. It’s not like, ‘Oh, my gosh! USC! They’re so good!’ It was like, ‘Oh, my gosh! We should’ve been even closer than that. We should’ve been in the game.’
“Now with them coming in here, it just spells a lot of danger for them.”
Nebraska has enough to get USC’s attention. Quarterback Sam Keller has picked up Calla- han’s complicated West Coast offense like a 16-year-old’s driver exam. He has a go-to receiver in senior Terrence Nunn and two experienced I-backs in juniors Marlon Lucky and Cody Glenn. The average height of the offensive line has gone from 6-foot-3 in 2004 to 6-foot-5, and McLeod predicts sophomore nose tackle Ndamukong Suh “is going to be one of the top defensive linemen in the country.”
The West Coast offense was the Least Coast in Callahan’s first year, a 5-6 flop job that had his staff scrambling to find proper personnel. It righted itself under quarterback Zac Taylor, going 8-4 and 9-5.
Now Callahan says he has installed more of the playbook than he ever had in leading the 2002 Oakland Raiders to the Super Bowl. These Cornhuskers will take any bowl with “BCS” in front of it.
“It takes time, and we’re in an impatient business,” Callahan said. “We had to plug in guys. We had to take a couple of (junior college) kids like Zac Taylor, Big 12 Player of the Year, so that validated what we were doing. We kept adding pieces. We’re still not complete, but we’re getting better.”
