Filed by Mitch Sherman at 1:55 p.m.
Lots of talk today, though not a lot of new information from Mack Brown and Colt McCoy of Texas and Nebraska's Bo Pelini, Ndamukong Suh and Jacob Hickman on a conference call to kick off the week of the Big 12 championship game.
It's going to be one of those weeks, with so much at stake that both sides work hard to avoid providing extra motivation for the opponent.
Not that Texas or Nebraska need extra motivation. For UT, only the Huskers stand in the way of a trip to BCS title game.
For the Huskers, a win would secure a 10-win season, BCS bowl bid (likely the Fiesta) and snap an eight-year skid without a win over a team ranked higher than 20th nationally.
Brown, the 12th-year UT coach, had lots of nice things to say about NU. He described the Huskers' defense as "great," Bo and Carl Pelini as "great coaches" and Suh as "unbelievable" and "amazing."
Brown said the Longhorns committed one year ago this week to reaching this game -- and winning it. Texas missed its chance to play for the league title in 2008 after a three-team tiebreaker in the Big 12 South Division sent Oklahoma to the title game.
"They'll be as excited about this weekend as I've ever seen them," Brown said of the Longhorns.
Pelini praised the Longhorns and McCoy, Texas' senior quarterback and Heisman Trophy hopeful. The Nebraska coach, asked if he thought the Huskers were ahead of schedule in reaching the Big 12 title game in his second season, said no.
"It's behind schedule as far as I'm concerned," Pelini said, "because I was hoping to get there last year."
We'll have more to report later after the Huskers' first practice since their 28-20 win Friday over Colorado.
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
RSS Feeds