The Nebraska buses will roll to a stop at the intersection of 14th and Vine at about 12:15 p.m. Saturday. Awaiting players and coaches from there is a four-minute walk to the team facility as throngs of fans cheer them on.
“Does it take four minutes for us?” coach Matt Rhule asked his chief of staff, Susan Elza, this week. Four minutes and seven seconds, she replied.
The second-year head man gave a nod and a small smile. Home is where the start is — of a season where the Huskers will take every edge they can find.
A 2:30 kickoff against UTEP at Memorial Stadium won’t much move the national needle. That’s just fine for Nebraska after four straight high-exposure road trips against Big Ten opponents all began seasons with Big Red gut punches. NU has spent the last three Labor Day weekends at 0-1.
What’s the value of a Husker opener at home? No one on the current roster has played in one, not even offensive tackle Bryce Benhart whose 42nd career start Saturday will be the most ever by a Nebraska O-lineman. Only five players — running back Rahmir Johnson, linebackers Javin Wright and John Bullock, defensive lineman Ty Robinson and Benhart — were even part of the team when the 2019 campaign kicked off with a victory against South Alabama that featured two defensive touchdowns and a punt-return score.
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“Staying home is a lot better,” said center Ben Scott, a former transfer whose Arizona State teams hosted smaller schools to begin 2021 and 2022. “We get to focus on what we’re doing here and getting our process ready.”
“I think it’s awesome,” said fifth-year senior offensive lineman Turner Corcoran. “I haven’t had a home opener for the first game of the yet and especially not against a Big Ten opponent.”
Saturday is a throwback-style debut at One Stadium Drive. UTEP’s profile as a clear underdog — one with an up-tempo attack, new coaching staff and reshuffled roster — is reminiscent of most of Nebraska’s opponents when it won 29 straight season debuts between 1986 and 2014. Twenty of those victories were against non “power” teams, including the last 11.
That streak ended the next year with a BYU Hail Mary as Nebraska stumbled to a 2-4 start. Thunderstorms in 2018 wiped out a scheduled opener with Akron, leaving the Huskers to instead face Colorado from the jump on the way to 0-6.
The familiarity of Memorial Stadium’s friendly confines for a debut feels downright luxurious after the last four seasons. A blowout loss at Ohio State in 2020 with COVID protocols in place. Tight road losses to Illinois in 2021, Northwestern in 2022 (in Ireland) and Minnesota in Rhule’s debut. Nebraska’s previous four openers away from home against power conference teams? 1999, 1995, 1994 and 1988.
Only Clemson matched Nebraska among current Power Four programs to travel to start against a power foe each of the last four years (the Tigers are doing it again Saturday against Georgia in a neutral-site affair). Penn State and LSU are the only other P4 teams to play all four times on the road. Five schools — Iowa State, Oklahoma State, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma — stayed home each year for a non-power challenge.
“Your first game should always be your worst game,” Bullock said. “And you want your worst game at home because you have the fans behind you and you have all that support. So I think that’s a huge advantage on our end because we haven’t had that.”
Nebraska gets it now, with a price tag of $1.6 million to a Conference USA school for the trouble. Nice for a veteran defense entirely filled with upperclassmen. Needed for an offense led by Dylan Raiola — who will join Adrian Martinez as the only true freshman Husker quarterbacks to start an opener — and new-look receiver corps. Ditto for a kicking game battling injuries and inconsistency.
Kickoff amid the sea of red will be a celebration of months of hard work, NU coaches said. The mood isn’t so festive for a tossup game in unfamiliar surroundings.
Home can bring its own distractions for players, Rhule said, including more family and friends around. It’s a trade NU will happily make a year after Minnesota’s crowd noise disrupted the Husker offense and two years after the program mounted a massive logistical effort to travel overseas.
Saturday means a chance at momentum, at metaphorical wind in the sails that have mostly hung limp into September. Losing six of the last nine openers will become a footnote if a fresh season begins with a mostly veteran group looking the part against a resetting Group of Five foe.
Instead of another early speed bump, an on-ramp to something new.
“I think it’s going to be electric,” defensive coordinator Tony White said. “The guys feel it. You feel it in the air. You kind of get the goosebumps right now talking about it. It’s going to be a great day.”
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