Cornhuskers tout a rich football history

The ghosts of past Nebraska football teams will be watching when Virginia Tech’s football team runs onto the Memorial Stadium field today in Lincoln, Neb.
Few programs can compete with the resume the Cornhuskers have compiled — five national championships, 811 wins, three Heisman Trophy winners.
And though Nebraska has fallen back to earth in the last few years — it went 5-7 last season — Tech’s players insist the mystique is still there.
“I know I’ll feel it, because I know their history,” said Hokies junior running back Kenny Lewis.
Nebraska is college football. It’s Bob Devaney. It’s Tom Osborne. It’s Johnny Rodgers and Mike Rozier and Turner Gill.
“It’s a big time program. Growing up, when you said Nebraska, that’s college football, and I still feel that way,” Tech coach Frank Beamer said. “Nebraska is big time.”
The Hokies (3-1) certainly respect the Cornhuskers (3-0), but can they contain their awe long enough to win the game?
Tech’s game last week at North Carolina was more significant for its Atlantic Coast Conference implications. Its trip to top-ranked LSU last season impacted the national championship picture.
This game? It’s about two proud programs banging helmets in an inter-sectional matchup.
“It’s not a conference game, but it’s a character game,” Lewis said. “It’s going to (show) how we are as a unit. At UNC, we had to fight back. Are we going to fight back from the first quarter this week? Are we going to come out ready to go? Are we going to come out as a unit?”
Tech is still waiting for a breakout game from its offense, espcially when it passes.
It could happen this week against the Cornhuskers’ suspect pass defense. It’s given up almost 270 passing yards a game to three non-BCS conference opponents so far this season.
But Nebraska is stingy against the run, and the Hokies have little hope if they can’t get some semblance of a rushing attack going.
Defense has kept Tech competitive. It forced four turnovers in the Hokies’ furious comeback win at North Carolina, and will likely need a similar effort tonight against Nebraska.
The Cornhuskers, who are off to their first 3-0 start since 2005, field a balanced option offensive attack, led by dual-threat quarterback Joe Ganz and dangerous I-back Marlon Lucky.
The 6-foot-1, 210-pound Ganz passed for an eye-popping 1,399 yards and 15 touchdowns in three — yes, three — starts last season.
Though he has made only six career starts, he owns four of the top nine passing games in school history, including the best (30-for-40 for 510 yards and seven touchdowns last season against Kansas State).
He has completed 64 percent of his passes this season for 719 yards and five touchdowns, and he’s the team’s third-leading rusher with 105 yards and a touchdown.
Lucky, the Big 12 Conference’s leading returning rusher this season, led the Cornhuskers in rushing (1,019 yards, nine touchdowns) and receiving (75 catches for 705 yards and three touchdowns) last season.
The 6-foot, 215-pound senior has four rushing touchdowns, one receiving touchdown and one passing touchdown — a 20-yarder to Ganz in Nebraska’s 38-7 win over New Mexico State.
That play stirred the Memorial Stadium crowd into a frenzy.
The Hokies are expecting similar fan involvement tonight. Nebraska’s home environment will be one of the most distracting they’ve ever faced.
Today’s game will be the 293rd consecutive sellout at Memorial Stadium. The Cornhuskers own a sterling 123-14 home record since the start of the 1989 season, and they’re 26-3 in home night games since they started playing under the lights in 1986.
Tech’s players say they’re up for the challenge.
“It just gets you more excited, to me, to play that type of game that’s so important. You’re on the road. Your back is against the wall. You’ve got all those crazy loud fans,” Tech senior defensive end Orion Martin said. “It’s going to be fun.”