Ndamukong Suh sat inside a dark locker room at Faurot Field, soaking wet. That night was the first conference game of Suh's historic season, and that day, rain had fallen in sheets. Almost 5 inches by midnight. Most in Columbia, Mo., in 20 years. Knocked out the electricity an hour before kickoff. So Suh waited in the dark.
We didn't know it. He didn't know it. But No. 93 was about to commence one of the most improbable runs at the Heisman Trophy in college football history.
At that moment, Suh was known as a good player with a strange name. Talented, no doubt, but forgettable to a tech-savvy generation with a short attention span.
Suh, the youngest child of immigrants, had already been at NU for four years. It'd been a rocky ride. His extraordinary strength and quickness created expectations he hadn't fulfilled. Time was running out.
Then Suh entered the rainstorm.
And over the next four hours, he mangled Missouri's offense, sparked a dramatic fourth-quarter rally and revealed himself as a once-in-a-generation talent, a star so bright he changed the way we look at 300-pound linemen.
“He made defensive tackle a sexy position,” said Trev Alberts, former Husker All-American defensive lineman and current athletic director at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Two short months later, Ndamukong Suh sat in the front row at the Nokia Theatre in New York in contention for the highest honor in his sport.
Regardless of where he finished in the Heisman Trophy voting, he would leave college football the most decorated exclusively defensive player in a generation.
The only player to win the Outland, Lombardi, Bednarik and Nagurski awards in the same year.
A player with more tackles, sacks, tackles for loss and pass breakups than top-ranked Alabama's three starting defensive linemen — combined.
The Heisman Trophy, by definition, goes to the nation's most outstanding player.
But implicit are two prerequisites:
One, the player must excel at quarterback, running back or wide receiver. Voters love guys who score touchdowns.
Two, the player must compete for one of the nation's best teams. Voters want leaders of championship squads.
In the past 40 years, only 10 defensive players have finished in the top five in the Heisman voting.
But only one did it without playing on a top-five team.
“I can't pronounce his name,” said fellow Heisman candidate Toby Gerhart, “so I just call him the beast from Nebraska.”
En-dom-ah-ken Soo.
That's how you say it, Toby.
And he almost left Nebraska — twice. The first time came after his third autumn in Lincoln, at the end of a painful era under Bill Callahan.
Suh struggled mightily in 2007, Nebraska's 5-7 season. He considered transferring to Oregon State.
Then Callahan and defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove were fired, replaced by Bo and Carl Pelini.
Suh stayed.
New coaches opened his eyes to technical aspects of defense he'd never known: pad level and hand placement, little things the fan in Section 38 at Memorial Stadium would never notice.
A year ago, he thought about forgoing his senior season and declaring for the NFL draft.
Bo Pelini visited his family in Portland, Ore., and convinced him he had room to grow in Lincoln.
Entering 2009, Suh was the face of the program, the cover man for The World-Herald's college football preview section. At Virginia Tech in September, the first big game, Suh bothered the Hokie offense all afternoon.
But the nation didn't take notice until a rainy Thursday night, Oct. 8.
From start to finish, Suh harassed Missouri. He chased down the Tigers' 235-pound quarterback and slammed Blaine Gabbert like a rag doll.
He intercepted a pass — a rare achievement for a 300-pound man — that led to Nebraska's go-ahead touchdown.
Afterward, one national columnist declared Suh the nation's best player. NFL draft guru Mel Kiper moved Suh to No. 1 on his list of college prospects.
That was the beginning of the Suh surge. The final push happened in Arlington, Texas.
Five straight victories had earned Nebraska a ticket to the Big 12 championship game against Texas. For Suh and the defense, it meant a stern test against the Heisman front-runner, Colt McCoy.
Texas' quarterback looked shaky from the start. Suh and his defensive cohorts smacked McCoy at every opportunity.
Oklahoma's Gerald McCoy, an All-American defensive tackle, has five sacks this season. Against Texas alone, Suh had 4½.
The most impressive came in the third quarter. He eluded two linemen, grabbed Colt McCoy and flung him to the turf.
Texas won the game, but McCoy played miserably.
“I think a lot of people were kind of hoping Colt McCoy would have a phenomenal game because they would feel better about giving (the Heisman) to him,” Alberts said.
“To see Ndamukong Suh so clearly dominate and change that game by himself, and to impact the level of Colt McCoy, I think a lot of voters said ‘Whoa, we better go back and look at this guy.' ”
They found the most unconventional of candidates.
Defensive tackle is perhaps the least likely position on the field to contend for a Heisman Trophy.
Defensive tackles have a simple, thankless charge: clog the middle of the field and create chances for teammates. They're like snowdrifts. Go around!
Even the best defensive tackles don't compile many statistics. It's hard when you've got 320-pound blockers hanging on you.
Suh is the first defensive lineman since 1991 to crack the Heisman top five.
But he doesn't invite attention, he deflects it.
Standout defenders-turned-Heisman candidates traditionally act with flamboyance. They possess charisma.
Before Warren Sapp and Brian Bosworth played a big game, they talked a big game.
Suh doesn't dance after sacking the quarterback. He'll bore you to sleep at a press conference.
Suh's father was born in Cameroon, his mother in Jamaica. They crossed oceans seeking American opportunities. They taught humility and hard work.
“The reason it's been so nice to see him get individual accolades,” said John Papuchis, Nebraska defensive assistant coach, “is that he never seemed like a guy that cared about that stuff.”
Football programs use Heisman candidates to gain exposure for their program and to lure recruits. But you can't have a Heisman candidate without publicity and hype. So programs commonly promote their stars like politicians.
Oregon in 2001 even erected a 10-story billboard in Times Square to advertise its quarterback.
Bo Pelini and Nebraska did almost nothing to promote Suh.
But after the Texas game, willingly or not, he was thrust into the limelight.
Take this exchange last week between popular radio personalities Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic on ESPN's “SportsCenter”:
“This man was a man amongst boys against Texas, and he's been that way all year long,” Golic said.
“It was one of the most dominating individual defensive performances we've ever seen on the college level,” Greenberg said.
“… Boy oh boy, he is a terror,” Golic said. “Sideline to sideline, backfield, downfield — wherever he goes, he's trouble.”
Take this line from columnist Jon Solomon of the Birmingham (Ala.) News, the home-state paper of Heisman candidate Mark Ingram:
“The Heisman can regain some credibility this week if Suh becomes only the second defensive player to win the 75-year-old trophy.”
How does a soft-spoken 300-pounder from a 9-4 football team earn such mass appeal?
Suh's numbers — 12 sacks, 23 tackles for loss, 82 tackles, 10 pass breakups — far exceed those of his peers. But they still don't jump off the page the way a quarterback's numbers do.
Suh's secret was something more visceral, more comprehensible.
He did to major Division I athletes what big brother does to little brother in the backyard — right before little brother goes crying to mom.
He humiliated offensive players — including a Heisman front-runner — with agility, strength and, last but not least, a mean streak seldom displayed even in a violent sport.
“He takes one blocker, throws him aside, takes another, throws him aside, runs up to the quarterback and throws him down with one arm,” Alberts said.
Said Papuchis: “Those are things 99.9 percent of guys playing college football can't do. Even that .1 percent that can, they don't do it very often. Suh makes it look almost routine.”
Said Tim Tebow, three-time Heisman finalist: “What he did — 4½ sacks — is pretty ridiculous. … Guys aren't supposed to do that. It's not a normal thing.”
Think about the history of Nebraska football, Alberts said. All those great teams, all those great defenses, all those great defenses.
For the first time during a game, Alberts said, fans are fixing their eyes not on the actual football but on the actions of the left defensive tackle. What's that say about Suh's ability?
“This young man has changed the way you look at defense,” Alberts said.
Alberts hasn't seen every great player to wear red at Memorial Stadium.
“But I can't fathom Nebraska ever having a player as uniquely talented and productive as Ndamukong Suh,” Alberts said.
Suh plays every snap like it's his last, Alberts said.
He runs 30 yards downfield to help make a tackle. He's perhaps the strongest and quickest defensive tackle in the country, and he combines it with technique and intellect.
Alberts, like 925 other Americans, had a Heisman Trophy vote.
Easy choice, Alberts said.
The beast from Nebraska.
World-Herald staff writer Mitch Sherman contributed to this report.
Contact the writer: 679-9899, dirk.chatelain@owh.com
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