Nebraska vs. Colorado stakes are big — just like the decibel level

Plug in. Dial in. Lock in.

That’s the phrase these days for describing how an athlete, in 2024, is supposed to resist the outside stimuli that peppers their psyche while they focus deeper, almost manically, on a small-but-crucial task — the timing of a center’s snap, for example, as a teammate runs across a football formation — that, if done poorly, threatens to bust up an entire week’s worth of preparation.

The noise — figurative, literal on Saturday night — around Nebraska’s latest game with Colorado and coach Deion “Prime” Sanders?

NU coach Matt Rhule says he doesn’t have much time to hear it.

“I’m just trying to get the football right,” Rhule said this week. “And nothing else.”

But he and his players know how it felt last September in Boulder. That 36-14 loss.

“It was a tough game from start to finish,” NU linebacker Mikai Gbayor said.

Sanders owned the scene in his giant sunglasses and Buff fans swirled their pom-poms in the stands before spilling onto the field at the end, as NU’s early-game incompetence — especially around the bad snaps — turned into a Colorado rout, into quarterback Shedeur Sanders posing in the second half in the corner of an end zone without his helmet before suggesting in his postgame press conference that Rhule and Nebraska had deliberately disrespected Colorado and Deion Sanders.

“Never seen a game like that,” said quarterback Dylan Raiola, still in high school last year as he watched the game on TV. Raiola was committed to Georgia then. He flipped to Nebraska, to Rhule, to set straight something that’s gone awry in Huskerville. His dad, Dominic, reminded Dylan he never lost to CU during his four years on campus.

Saturday night, NU has to beat Colorado to avoid a four-game losing streak to the Buffs, and to break a current six-game losing streak to power conference teams outside the Big Ten.

The stakes, then, are as big as that wall of sound created by Memorial Stadium’s six-story east side. A win during NBC’s national telecast — advertised prominently during the network’s opening NFL game Thursday night — will send a strong message to a large group of recruits on hand, grab a measure of revenge and potentially catalyze Rhule’s rebuilding process in Lincoln. Every successful coaching tenure needs a moment. Maybe this is Rhule’s.

“It definitely means something a little bit more to him,” Raiola said. “You can tell.”

It means more to Colorado, as well. CU long snapper Camden Dempsey — known as “the governor” inside the Buffaloes’ program — wrote on X that Buff fans should “unite in solidarity” by “banishing the color red from our wardrobes, homes, businesses and public spaces.” Dempsey posted a picture of himself in a black hat, tipping the camera.

At Nebraska, the week was spent barely on simmer, much less a boil. If the weather gods are ready to cooperate — sunny skies, temps in the 60s at kickoff — and fans are so excited that the cheapest ticket on Stubhub on Friday morning ran north of $200, the team aims to coil up, direct that intensity and play aggressive, error-free football on Saturday.

“Everybody wants to make the game about them, and whatever,” NU safety Isaac Gifford. “It’s about us.”

Players have come up with saying, freshman tight end Carter Nelson said, that they “sleep with the enemy” each night. Themselves. A remarkable 3-18 record in one-score games since 2021 lends some credence to the notion.

“I’m just going to keep bringing the guys back to ‘hey guys, let’s execute,’” Rhule said. “Let’s play third down. Let’s protect the football. Let’s not fumble on the seven-yard line.’”

Nevertheless, the Sanders family — dad Deion, son Shedeur — brings a celebrity feel to town. Deion’s seemingly a part of every other commercial on a college football Saturday — in a DirecTV ad, he voices an animated pigeon wearing a cowboy hat — while Shedeur leads the nation with 445 passing yards per game. The quarterback appears a lock to be a first-round NFL Draft pick.

“He’s the type of player that makes you a better coordinator,” said NU defensive coordinator Tony White, whose unit sacked Sanders eight times last season but still allowed 384 passing yards, often when Sanders evaded the Husker pass rush or danced his way through NU’s occasional decision to rush three and play coverage.

Sanders uses the full width of the field, Rhule said, to attack defenses, and CU’s speedy receivers — two-way talent Travis Hunter, Jimmy Horn and LaJohntay Wester — can beat most defenses. The likelihood of Nebraska smothering the Buffaloes entirely seems unlikely.

But perhaps NU’s crowd, at full throat, can make things a pain. It has before to the Buffaloes — the 1992, 1994 and 1996 games, when Kordell Stewart and Koy Detmer couldn’t break an egg, come to mind — and on Saturday, Nebraska anticipates a crowd that’ll show up early, some clutching red balloons, brought back as a special occasion, and cheer hard when the 1994 national title team — which stared down an elite Colorado squad — is honored on the 30th anniversary of its undefeated season.

Back then, Rhule was on the Penn State team that also won all its games but finished second to NU in the polls.

Now, he can win one back for Nebraska and slow down the Sanders’ hype train. The Huskers anticipate an opponent that arrives ready to talk a little trash and back it up with big plays.

“We already know what it’s going to be,” Gbayor said. “We already know they’re going to come in here with a little bit of attitude. It’s nothing that we’re not going to prepare for.”

Is Colorado ready for Nebraska Noise? Rhule wants that on Saturday, with the “nice” portion of the state taking a break until Sunday.

“I think it will be a great, great, great atmosphere,” Rhule said. “Night game, people have all day to get themselves ready for the game, and it should be loud.”

Even if, in its effort to send that crowd into a frenzy, the Huskers aim to block it out.