LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -Everything changes for Nebraska’s Zac Lee on Saturday night.
He took 13 meaningless snaps in two games last season and his ascendancy to starting quarterback this year wasn’t assured until his main competition for the job transferred. Now Lee will help determine whether Bo Pelini’s effort to rebuild the storied program continues.
“I feel real confident in what he’s getting ready to do,” Pelini said. “I probably have more anxiety about some other positions than I do about how Zac is going to play. I’m also realistic enough to know that he’s not going to play perfect. I hope he does. I hope he plays pretty close to it.”
Offensive coordinator Shawn Watson isn’t planning to hold anything back in the 24th-ranked Cornhuskers’ opener against Florida Atlantic.
of their last seven games.
The son of long-retired NFL quarterback Bob Lee is just as comfortable throwing downfield as he is throwing on the run. He also is capable of keeping the ball and taking off running when Watson sprinkles in facets of the Nebraska triple-option.
“I think it will be fun,” Lee said. “I’m ready for it. It’s something I’ve been waiting for.”
The Huskers will be going against the first of three opponents from the Sun Belt Conference. This one has visited plenty of big-time venues in recent years. Florida Atlantic coach Howard Schnellenberger relishes these types of games, mostly for the national exposure but also for the money. The Owls earn $650,000 for visiting Lincoln, and they’ll pick up another $800,000 in two weeks when they travel to South Carolina.
“We go in there holding out the hope that the situation might develop that we have a chance to be in the ball game late and something good could happen to us,” Schnellenberger said. “Obviously, the odds are against that. Nevertheless, our team is going out there with strength in our heart and with a wide-open attitude. I’m hopeful we distinguish ourselves in whatever the final score might be.”
seasons at the time.
The well-traveled, 75-year-old coach knows Nebraska well. He led Miami to the 1983 national championship, winning an Orange Bowl for the ages 31-30 after the favored Huskers famously failed on a 2-point conversion. In 1995, Schnellenberger’s only year at Oklahoma, a Nebraska team that was on its way to a second straight national title beat the Sooners 37-0 in Lincoln.
The Owls’ hopes rest on the arm of Rusty Smith, the Sun Belt’s all-time leading passer.
“They’re going to be extremely big, extremely strong, just like the bigger teams we’ve played in the past,” Smith said of Nebraska. “We feel as long as we can limit our mistakes, we think we’ll be able to put some points on the board and hang with them as long as possible.”
Schnellenberger stirred things up before his team’s 2008 opener at Texas when he called the Longhorns soft. The Owls lost 52-10.
This year, he went out of his way to butter up the Huskers.
“Obviously,” he said, “we may be playing the winner of the national championship this year.”
The Huskers, at this point, are only favored to win the Big 12 North, and by a slim margin over Kansas. How far they go rests largely on a defense that gave up 126 fewer yards a game last year than in 2007 – and on their first-year starting quarterback.
Ganz and Patrick Witt.
Witt and Lee were expected to battle for the starting job in the spring, but Witt transferred to Yale, and Lee won the job almost by default. Lee appeared in two games last season, attempting only two passes and running twice for a total of 17 yards.
Pelini said his only instructions to Lee are to keep performing as he has in practice and to not approach the game as if he has to win it by himself.
“He knows that he is just one piece of the puzzle,” Pelini said. “It’s an important piece, but if we didn’t feel like he was prepared he wouldn’t be there.”
Add A Comment