One fan's Husker hysteria

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He's bringing back the comb-over.

He's making the sweater vest sexy.

He's perfecting the curl of his moustache.

Paul Favela, aka "Husker Hombre" on Facebook, is doing it all in the name of University of Nebraska Cornhusker football.

The first-year dental student takes game day seriously — an acute understatement when you study his costume, game preparations and traditions.

"Why?" some might ask. Because he can.

"You can wear whatever you want to a football game," say Favela, 22, a University of Nebraska Medical Center student who studies dentistry on the UNL campus. "It's more like I can dress up and act ridiculous seven times a year."

Favela is a serious Husker fan, but he's also a serious student.

When he says he studies all day, he's not kidding. And all day means from the moment he gets up to the time he takes off his Husker Chuck Taylors and falls into bed.

So, he said, when he spends five to six hours at a football game, it's well-deserved.

"I think it's necessary to kind of wind down for a while and then pick it up again the next day," Favela says. "(The game) is kind of a goal to get through the week."

Dental school is no joke, he says, which is why he brings study materials to home games and watches away games in the anatomy lab.

Some people spend time watching things like "Jersey Shore," he says with a laugh, but he prefers football.

"Today is a good moustache day," says Favela as he sits in his Husker-themed living room in Lincoln.

It started out as a friendly competition with a friend to grow a "well-groomed" moustache until Favela realized the stache added another element to his game-day get-up.

So now he has seasonal facial hair.

It took some finagling to get the hair on his upper lip to curl just right, he explains. There was a transitional phase in the hair growth — that was hard to get through, he remembers. Sometimes the left side has issues, but that's why he has three contact-lens cases filled with wax. One in his pocket, one in his backpack and the other at his girlfriend's house, just in case.

"But every game day is a good moustache day," he explains, noting that cold weather is the best for his moustache because the wax hardens.

Favela isn't a corn-bred Nebraskan. When he tells people he was born and raised in southern Texas, he is often asked: "Are you a Texas fan?"

To which he sarcastically responds, "If I were a Texas fan, wouldn't I be at Texas?"

He considered UNL after receiving good financial aid. Football was a factor as well. He also got his undergraduate degree from UNL.

Because neither of his parents graduated from a big university, he didn't grow up cheering for a specific team, He originally thought that was a bad thing, but now he's glad he could make his own choice.

"If I grew up cheering for Colorado, that would have been horrible," he says, looking serious.

"I generally don't wake up late for Husker games," Favela says.

He's not kidding.

Getting up by 6 or 6:30 in the morning, depending on the game, he gets dressed as fast as possible with the outfit he set out the night before: coat, bandoleers, corn, pants, hat, shoes, socks.

Wax the moustache, gel the hair, get to the stadium, be the first in line.

Then he waits. Students line up early to get in the front row because their seats are not assigned. He attends the games with friends and roommates. Some dress up, but not like Favela.

With his anatomy notes in hand, Favela takes full advantage of his time in line.

When the gates open, he's ready to go. Running cross-country in high school comes in handy for his dash to the stadium.

The sprint might not always be necessary, he said, but it's part of the experience.

"There's always a sense of relief when you get your seats," he says. "It only takes one person to take the seats I want."

He's not too superstitious, but Favela knows what to do if the Huskers are losing.

He takes his hat off if they're doing bad, and keeps it off if the game turns around.

And he throws away the corn in his bandoleer if the Huskers don't win. Bad luck equals bad corn.

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