Todd Millikan came home from work two weeks ago, opened his mailbox and found an interesting envelope from the University of Nebraska.

Millikan played his last football game in Lincoln in 1988. Coaches have come and gone. Championships won and lost. Even two conference changes.

A parole/probation officer in Shenandoah, Iowa — even one who still owns Nebraska's record for career touchdowns by a tight end — starts to feel a little old after all these years.

Millikan opened the envelope and — “Holy cow!” as he put it — old No. 43 had been elected to the Nebraska football hall of fame.

“I thought they done forgot about me,” Millikan said.

Millikan joins former Huskers Ndamukong Suh, Dan Alexander, Steve Lindquist, Ed Periard, Bob Pickens, Carlos Polk and Chris Spachman in the 2010 class, announced this week.

Millikan isn't the biggest name in the bunch. He wasn't much of a star during his heyday, either. He caught only 40 balls his entire career. But 14 went for touchdowns, an astounding 35 percent.

He earned first-team All-Big Eight honors as a senior in 1988.

Not bad for a guy who didn't catch passes in high school.

Nebraska recruited Millikan as a linebacker out of Shenandoah. That's where he played on the freshman team in 1984. The next summer, Tom Osborne suggested that he switch to tight end. Whatever gets me on the field the quickest, Millikan said.

As a sophomore, Millikan emerged in the 1986 season opener against Florida State. Under the lights at Memorial Stadium, Nebraska rolled over Deion Sanders and the Seminoles on national TV, 34-17.

The fresh face at tight end caught his first touchdown pass that night, a 12-yarder from Steve Taylor.

“I just remember catching that ball, going to the sideline and thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, everybody back home was watching that,'” Millikan said. “I probably had a good game because I was running scared.”

He quickly developed into a trusty set of hands. In those days, Nebraska didn't often utilize tight ends in the passing game.

“We'd run it down your throat until you stopped us,” Millikan said.

But in Millikan, Osborne identified a weapon. About the time safeties crept toward the line of scrimmage to stop the option, Taylor faked the pitch and found Millikan dashing free in the secondary.

“I credit a lot of my success to coach Osborne and his playcalling,” Millikan said.

Among the top 50 receivers in NU history, Millikan leads everyone with 20.6 yards per catch.

If he had the ball, the Huskers likely had a big gain.

Millikan's sweetest win came in a game he didn't touch the ball. In 1988, Nebraska went to Oklahoma needing a victory to lock up its first Big Eight title in five years. NU held off the Sooners in a cold rain, 7-3.

That was Millikan's last conference game. And the last time Nebraska faced Barry Switzer.

Twenty-two years later, Nebraska leaves behind Oklahoma and its old conference chums, and Millikan is thrilled.

For years, he's been on the front line of verbal spats between fans of Huskers and Hawkeyes. Now Iowa fans get their chance, he said, to walk the talk.

“It will be a great rivalry. We should've been playing it for years.”

Hall of Fame induction and award ceremonies will be Sept. 10 at Memorial Stadium, with recognition Sept. 11 before the Nebraska-Idaho game.

HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

Dan Alexander: He ranks 14th on Nebraska's all-time rushing list with 2,456 career yards, including the 15th-best season with 1,154 yards in 2000. The 6-foot, 245-pounder from Wentzville, Mo., capped his career by earning first-team All-Big 12 honors as an I-back and then erupting for the best bowl game rushing performance in school history. Alexander rolled for 240 yards and two touchdowns on just 20 carries to claim MVP honors in NU's 66-17 Alamo Bowl win over Northwestern. He spent the 2001 season with the Tennessee Titans and the 2002 season with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Steve Lindquist: The guard from Minneapolis was a second-team All-American in 1978. He earned four letters for the Huskers from 1975 to 1978 and helped Nebraska lead the nation in total offense with 501.4 yards per game as a senior.

Ed Periard: At 5-9 and 200 pounds, Periard was not a prototypical middle guard in 1970. But the senior from Birch Run, Mich., earned first-team All-Big Eight honors on coach Bob Devaney's 1970 national championship team. He amassed 79 total tackles that season, including 48 solo stops and a team-best 15 tackles for 89 yards lost. Periard died in a car accident in 1993.

Bob Pickens: A world-class athlete, Pickens earned All-Big Eight honors in his lone season as an offensive tackle for the Huskers in 1966. An outstanding heavyweight wrestler, Pickens was a member of the 1964 U.S. Olympic Team in Tokyo and took third place at the 1966 AAU Greco-Roman national championships before focusing his senior season on football. Pickens was drafted by the Chicago Bears in 1966 and played for the Bears from 1967 to 1969.

Carlos Polk: The 6-2, 250-pounder from Rockford, Ill., was a first-team All-American as a senior middle linebacker in 2000. He was a two-time first-team All-Big 12 pick. Polk led the Huskers with 90 tackles as a senior, including a team-best 40 solo stops. He played seven seasons with the San Diego Chargers from 2001 through 2007 before closing his career with the Dallas Cowboys in 2008.

Chris Spachman: A three-year starter at defensive tackle, Spachman claimed first-team All-Big Eight honors as a senior in 1986. The Kansas City, Mo., native finished his career with 105 total tackles, including 21 for losses with 10 sacks.

Ndamukong Suh: Suh earned automatic induction into the Hall of Fame by winning the Outland Trophy and Lombardi Award in 2009, while also becoming the first Husker in history to win the Nagurski and Bednarik awards. The first defensive player in history to be named the Associated Press National Player of the Year, Suh finished fourth in 2009 Heisman Trophy voting. The Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year, Suh was a unanimous All-American in 2009, before being chosen by the Detroit Lions with the second overall pick in the 2010 NFL draft. The 6-4, 300-pounder from Portland, Ore., finished second on NU's career list with 57 tackles for loss, trailing only College Football Hall of Famer Grant Wistrom (58.5). As a senior, Suh led NU in tackles for the second straight season, while leading NU with 24 tackles for loss, including 12 sacks. He also led the nation's defensive linemen with 10 pass breakups, a school position record. In the Big 12 championship game against Texas, Suh tied a school record with seven tackles for loss, including 4.5 sacks.

STATE COLLEGE INDUCTEES

Mike Sallier, Doane: A two-time NAIA All-American for coach Al Papik's Doane Tigers in 1968 and 1969, Sallier ranks as the school's all-time scoring leader with 354 points, including 59 career touchdowns. No other Tiger in history has come within 100 points of Sallier's mark, and his 59 TDs are 22 more than anyone else on that Doane College list. The 5-6, 150-pound halfback from Port Arthur, Texas, led the NAIA in scoring as a sophomore in 1968, when he scored a school-record 23 touchdowns in just nine games to average a nation-leading 15.3 points per game.

Noland Urban, Nebraska Wesleyan: A two-time All-American and four-time All-GPAC linebacker for Nebraska Wesleyan, Urban shattered the Prairie Wolves' career tackles record with 557 from 1997 to 2000. The 6-2, 255-pound linebacker from Osceola, Neb., was named the Football Gazette's NAIA Linebacker of the Year in 2000. A four-year letterman for NWU after transferring from Nebraska following his freshman campaign, Urban produced three of the top 10 seasons for tackles in school history.

Contact the writer:

649-1461, dirk.chatelain@owh.com

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