LINCOLN — Excuse Jacob Hickman for his confusion. It's been a long season — 12 games in 13 weeks, including eight straight without a break as Nebraska prepares for a big one Saturday night against Texas in the Big 12 championship game.
“You get a feeling everybody's pretty excited about this week and getting out there to Denver,” Hickman said Monday. “It's different than other weeks. You can tell, because of what the game means.”
Um, Jake, it's Dallas.
Arlington, Texas, to be exact. You know, Cowboys Stadium, the brand-new, $1.3 billion monstrosity with a retractable, domed roof? You've seen it on TV.
Denver was last week.
Hickman, the senior center, and his NU teammates, no doubt, know where they're going this week. And if 15-point underdog Nebraska beats No. 3 Texas, the Huskers are headed to a BCS bowl for the first time in eight years.
The realization of what's at stake sent a charge through NU camp as the week of practice began. For 21st-ranked Nebraska, there's light at the end of this long tunnel.
Nebraska players said they don't view the title game as an attempt to crash the Longhorns' party.
There's plenty on the line for NU, too, though the Huskers are aware that most media and fans have already penciled Texas into the Jan. 7 BCS title game against Florida or Alabama.
“Supposedly, they give us no chance,” senior linebacker Phillip Dillard said. “That's fine, but we're going to come out swinging.”
Primarily, Monday was reserved for the exchange of pleasantries between coaches and key players from the North and South champions.
Texas coach Mack Brown called Nebraska a “great program.” He praised coach Bo Pelini and defensive coordinator Carl Pelini. Brown described star defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh as “amazing.”
“He's as good as any player in America,” Brown said. “He's unbelievable. We've enjoyed watching him.”
Heisman-hopeful quarterback Colt McCoy said the NU defensive front “might be the best we've seen all year.”
“They're really physical,” McCoy said of the entire defensive unit. “They're really well coached. You see that on the film. They're not going to make mistakes. They're just really good at what they do. It's going to be a huge challenge for us.”
But Texas won't stick to this tactic of attempting to kill the Huskers with niceness.
Make no mistake, a fire burns inside the Longhorns.
UT missed its chance to play in this game a year ago as a three-team, South Division tie sent Oklahoma to face Missouri and then Florida for the national title.
Brown said his team laid the foundation for this season 52 weeks ago.
“To hear that you did not make the Big 12 championship game, this team committed to each other that they would be back in the game this year,” the 12th-year Texas coach said. “And I'm very, very proud of them. But their goal was to get in this game and win this game, so they still haven't gotten the goal accomplished.
“They still have to earn the right to be Big 12 champs.”
To earn the chance to deny Texas, NU won four consecutive games, starting Oct. 31, to clinch the North and added a fifth straight last week over rival Colorado.
“We understand that we put ourselves in a bind,” Suh said, “but once we went back to work, we knew we could change those things, and that's what we did.”
It's quite an accomplishment for a group that sat 1-2 in the Big 12 before Halloween. But Pelini said the Huskers are not content.
In fact, he said, they're behind schedule.
“I was hoping to get there last year,” Pelini said. “It didn't happen. It didn't work out.”
He's happy to be there now.
“I came here to win football games and compete for championships,” the second-year coach said. “We have an opportunity to compete for one Saturday night, and that's what I'm looking forward to.”
Of Nebraska's five straight wins, none came by more than 14 points. All five remained in doubt entering the fourth quarter.
For that reason and others, Pelini said, he believes the Huskers have yet to play their best game. Maybe it will happen Saturday night. They'll need it, he said.
“I don't think anyone's going to have to worry about getting excited for a game like this,” Hickman said. “If you do, there's probably something wrong with you.”
Hickman and Dillard, despite the long season, both noticed an intensity jump as the title game nears.
“I just know that we've been talking a lot about how we're going to go out and attack,” Dillard said. “We're not going to sit back and wait for something to happen.”
Contact the writer:
402-444-1031, mitch.sherman@owh.com
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