LINCOLN — Garrett Nelson held both arms in front of him and grabbed an imaginary flight stick. Then he gripped harder, hands shaking.
Nebraska wants to be somewhere in the middle Saturday, the Husker edge rusher and co-captain said. Locked in enough to perform well. Relaxed enough not to crash into a mountain of nerves and expectations.
Beyond the novelty of a season opener more than 4,000 miles and six time zones from home is a 60-minute encounter with Northwestern that will set a lasting tone for Nebraska the way few debuts can. A win would bring relief, validation and hope for a campaign that will get tougher as the weather gets colder. A loss threatens to unearth doubt — at least outside the program — that the season is over before September.
“We know the stakes and we know what’s riding on it and we know the pressure,” Nelson said. “That’s great because it elevates your play and focus. But when you start looking at things to not hit, you usually end up hitting them instead of looking for the path to success.”
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Coach Scott Frost recalls the Huskers being “a little too tight” for last year’s first game at Illinois that carried similar weight to this one in Ireland. They spent months dwelling on the gravity of it — then fielded a punt at the 2-yard line and threw out half their game plan when they saw a defensive front they didn’t expect. NU lost the game in what was the first of nine defeats by single digits.
The other three openers under Frost carried similar vibes. A weather-related cancellation in 2018 that an amped-up Big Red couldn’t recapture as it went on to lose six straight contests. A lackluster win over South Alabama in 2019. A lopsided defeat at Ohio State the year after that that felt equal parts competitive and resigning.
Nebraska believes it has mapped out a different path this time with five new assistant coaches and 16 transfers highlighting a team-wide renovation. The end of the offseason rainbow is inside a green-seated Aviva Stadium, where the treasure of momentum — hard to find since 2016 — sits ready for the taking.
A national audience will be watching more closely than usual as the Huskers kick off not just their own fall but college football’s as a whole.
“If you win the game it’s great,” Frost said. “If you don’t, you’re starting 0-1 in the conference. The guys know the importance of this game. I think the team might have been a little tight last year because of it and we’re not going to do that. We’re going over to let it rip and play the best game we can play and let the chips fall where they may against a good team.”
Frost himself has appeared relaxed all month, hot-seat talk be darned.
A video sent out by Nebraska’s Twitter account showed the fifth-year coach sliding partway down a railing as he left Memorial Stadium last week.
Some of the newer Huskers may be less likely to be caught up in the moment too. Quarterback Casey Thompson — 10-game starter at Texas a year ago — posits that he’s been nervous ahead of just one game in his college career. That was before his first start that season, on the bus ride to the field. More often he finds himself in a “meditation state” that others can feed on.
The loose confidence for him and Nebraska now, he said, has been forged through an offseason of training and after-hours work. They’ve studied for the test, understanding that few surprise moments might pop up. As the saying goes, the Huskers expect to fall back on their training instead of rising to the occasion.
“We’ve practiced for this and we’re all prepared,” Thompson said. “Just relax, have fun and play the game.”
Said returning cornerback Quinton Newsome: “This first game is going to be the starting point for this season. I feel like we just have to attack.”
During a lull in practice late in fall camp, new offensive coordinator Mark Whipple noticed a few players chirping at each other. Don’t, he told them. You’ve put in the work. It flashed him back to before he called plays in Super Bowl XL with the Pittsburgh Steelers in February 2006 — at the time, he figured, he better not screw up or the fan base would “murder me.”
“It’s important to them, but they’ve got to relax,” Whipple said. “It’s that fine line of, ‘You’ve done well. We’re going to make some mistakes. How are you going to handle adversity?’ Just a little reminder there that they can’t get uptight and get on one other.”
Perhaps the Emerald Isle of all places is where the Huskers will finally find some luck too as an international trip ensures their minds aren’t on football 24-7. Maybe it is where they will pound the rock — shamrock? — generate takeaways and gain separation on special teams like they haven’t in years. Where the biggest regret is what they didn’t see in Dublin, not what they didn’t do on the soccer-style field surface.
A pot of gold? The Huskers just want to play bold. That’s something they can bring back across the pond.
“Yes, let’s be focused and locked in and dialed in to how important this is,” Nelson said. “But at the end of the day we’re playing football and hitting dudes and creating interceptions and sacking people so that’s pretty fun. You have to laugh and enjoy that.”