• Video Below: Nebraska coach Bo Pelini addresses the media (Oct. 27)

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LINCOLN — The pictures don't lie.

Ron Brown cuts them from newspapers and brings them to his Nebraska running backs.

The running backs are frozen in time for all to see. Perfect learning tools.

With I-back Rex Burkhead, Brown said, there's usually less to point out or say than with the others in the Husker backfield.

"Rex, you see ball security almost every picture," said Brown, the longtime NU assistant coach. "He's got great pad level. Balance. And his eyes are up, his face is up, so he sees everything.

"So if you had to teach a young kid how you play the game of football, you'd start right there."

What the pictures don't show is what happens before the photo is taken, or more important, after.

When the picture is snapped, Burkhead often is just getting started — just beginning his general refusal to let the play come to an end.

"He's an extremely tough, tough running back," Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio has noticed on film. "Runs through the smoke. Runs through tackles. You've got to get him down. You've got to put him on the ground."

The Spartans will be the next to try as their aggressive and rugged defense takes its shot at Burkhead on Saturday. It will find a 5-foot-11, 210-pounder who has spent the season finishing plays and finishing games for the Huskers.

Burkhead has rushed for more yards in the fourth quarter (252) than any other quarter this season, and he has done so without carrying the football once in the final 15 minutes of two blowouts (Tennessee-Chattanooga, Minnesota).

His average per carry in the fourth is 6.8, compared to 5.4 in the first three quarters. Of the 41 first downs he has gained running the football, 18 have come in the fourth quarter.

It would be easier to understand if he were a 230-pound bulldozer, wearing down an opponent as his carries and damage accumulate, but NU freshman I-back Ameer Abdullah said it's as much mental as physical with Burkhead.

"He never goes down," Abdullah said. "He probably has the most YAC yards (yards after contact) in the country. He never goes down the first tackle. He's so strong off the initial contact. That's what I really like about his running style."

It has helped Burkhead rise to No. 4 in the Big Ten and No. 17 nationally in rushing yards per game at 107.4. The junior from Plano, Texas, is averaging 124.4 over the past five games and just became the 26th Husker to eclipse 2,000 career yards.

Nebraska coach Bo Pelini said this week that Burkhead is one of the more underrated backs in the country.

"That's a great compliment from him," Burkhead said. "I'll take it. But my main focus is on the team right now and how far we can come along this year, and being able to hopefully play in that Big Ten championship game at the end of the year."

Burkhead maybe lacks the flash. Maybe lacks some of the name recognition. But Abdullah said he feels his teammate is "one of, if not the best, running backs in the country."

"I grew up in SEC country, and I grew up watching Trent Richardson, Mark Ingram, Ben Tate . all those running backs coming out of Alabama and Auburn," Abdullah said. "I've seen those guys. And the same things they have, I see in Rex every day."

What Brown sees in Burkhead is a little of everything — and most of it good.

Brown said he looked up during a recent workout and saw a weight-room placard with "Rex Burkhead, 2010 Lifter of the Year" and thought to himself, "What else is new ?"

Burkhead has been a mentor and positive influence for Abdullah and NU's two other freshman I-backs. He has emerged as one of the Huskers' strongest leaders. He is lauded for bringing the same energy and attitude to everything he does, no matter the circumstances.

NU receiver Brandon Kinnie goes as far as jokingly calling him "a perfect human being."

"Rex can do everything," Kinnie said. "Sometimes you get mad, like, 'Oh, really, you can do that, too?' Some people you get annoyed with sometimes, 'All right, he's always right. He's always doing the right thing.' But Rex, he's a good dude, good attitude, and he can literally do it all.

"I tell him after a game, 'Did you have a 100 (yards)?' And he's like, 'Yeah.' I'm like, 'How? You only had like 30 in the first half.' "

That might be what has made his 752 yards for the season so impressive. They have helped knock out teams like Fresno State and Washington in the fourth quarter. They came in the heart of the comeback against Ohio State, when Burkhead carried 12 times for 96 yards and the game-winning touchdown.

If people aren't noticing nationally, at least they are around the Big Ten.

Dantonio said Burkhead plays with great effort and "makes things go" for the Huskers. Minnesota coach Jerry Kill told Pelini before last week's game that he thought Burkhead was one of the best in the conference, and the hard-nosed coach said of his own transitional program: "We need guys like that."

"You can tell, just the way he plays, that it's important to him and that he's passionate about the game," Kill said. "To me he's old school, and that's the way I like to have them."

Burkhead spreads more than an adequate amount of credit to the NU offensive line, receivers and fullback Tyler Legate. They provide the starting point for everything he does.

But Minnesota had him hemmed in and bottled up more than a few times last week. Nowhere to go. Yet somehow he made at least something of it.

"If you cage him up — you try to put some people around him and he's got nowhere to go — he's like a wild animal," Brown said. "You try to cage a wild animal ... and then all of a sudden he turns on you. He's an elusive guy, but he's a vicious runner.

"He's not going down. He ain't taking the fall, so he's going to take shots. But he's as tough as nails. He keeps coming back, because his will is bigger than the outside part of him."

The will has a way of coming to the surface the longer he plays. Offensive coordinator Tim Beck said NU doesn't necessarily save Burkhead for the fourth quarter — that's just when things like his conditioning, want-to, competitiveness and intestinal fortitude show up.

"He has an incredible drive to succeed," Beck said, "and we ride that horse."

Contact the writer:

402-444-1042, rich.kaipust@owh.com

twitter.com/RKaipustOWH

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• Video: Nebraska coach Bo Pelini addresses the media (Oct. 27):

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