Zac Lee is starting to figure out the finer details of his coveted job as Nebraska's new starting quarterback.
Take Tuesday's press conference as an example. When he sat in to be interviewed, Lee looked down at the table full of voice recorders that will undoubtedly surround him each week this fall.
"There's a lot of these little things," Lee said.
Seems like a small detail, right? And yet I made it my lead anecdote.
It's a sign of how big of suckers we reporters are when it comes to the starting signal caller. Every finite detail is immediately more important when it's the quarterback.
Despite having never started a game for NU, Lee is already a pro at dealing with the media. If his performances at press conferences and interviews are a sign of things to come on the football field, Cornhusker fans will be quite happy with their new starting quarterback.
Lee is the consummate professional in these settings. He says everything with a smile and rarely fumbles.
Compared to his teammates, Lee sticks to a different persona at press conferences. He doesn't crack jokes like Roy Helu Jr. He isn't as serious as Ndamukong Suh. He won't give you the wisdom that Jacob Hickman drops on a weekly basis.
Instead, you get the prototypical starting quarterback. He's confident but never cocky. He's comfortable in front of the cameras. His most noticeable trait, though, is his ability to never give reporters the quotes they want.
At the beginning of fall camp, Lee was asked what aspects of his game he wanted to improve upon.
"All of them, really," he said.
"Are there any wideouts that really jumped out and made improvements this summer?" one reporter asked.
"No, they all did," he said with a big smile.
On Tuesday, Lee was asked what he's most looking forward to about Saturday's debut game against Florida Atlantic.
"The whole thing," he said. "I think it's going to be fun."
It's as if Lee hired a PR firm to teach him how to be a stoic, flawless leader. At times, that can be frustrating to us reporters. We want him to fill our voice recorders with hyperbole. We want Chad Ochocinco.
But Lee isn't someone who takes over the quarterback job with the mentality of a star player. Sure, at this point it's easy for fellow students to not recognize a quarterback with two career completions, but the lack of notoriety doesn't bother Lee.
"For me, life kind of consists of going to class and going to the stadium," he said. "There hasn't been much time for that."
He falls in line well with coach Bo Pelini's emphasis of putting in a hard day's work. Teammates say he's a perfectionist, and it shows at the end of practices. On most days, Lee can be seen following offensive coordinator Shawn Watson off the practice field, asking questions and going over the day's scenarios.
"One thing Zac can do is, he puts errors on his shoulders," receiver Menelik Holt said at the beginning of the fall. "He fixes his errors really fast. He's always someone who holds himself accountable."
Lee's ability to tinker with the finer aspects of his game has earned Watson's respect.
"He's worked really hard to do the little things it's going to take for him to be a successful college player, and there's so many of them," Watson said. "He's had a lot to learn, but I have a lot of confidence in him, and I really believe in him."
Lee won't be asked to win games all by himself. Instead, he has to operate NU's offensive attack and manage the game well.
Pelini said he has "a tremendous amount of confidence" in Lee's ability to run the team.
"I'm not sitting here and telling Zac, ‘You've got to go out and win the football game by yourself,'" Pelini said. "He knows he's just one piece of the puzzle … He's not going to play perfect, but I hope he does. I hope he plays pretty close to it."
Lee said he's been trading texts with Joe Ganz throughout the week, and the always-confident, former NU quarterback had simple advice for his protege.
"Joe said, ‘Just go out there and be yourself, and you'll be alright,'" Lee said.
He hasn't started a game since 2006. He's been compared to Ganz all spring, summer and fall. And in three days, Lee will finally get a chance to prove himself.
"As a quarterback, you want to get out there and show what you're worth," he said. "It's obviously a big deal to me and something I've wanted a long time. It'll be nice to go out there and show people what I can do."
"I feel ready for it and very prepared," he said.
Lee says all the right things. On Saturday night, we'll see if his play can match his talk.
MAX OLSON IS A SOPHOMORE NEWS-EDITORAL MAJOR. REACH HIM AT MAXOLSON@DAILYNEBRASKAN.COM.
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