This year's Bowl Championship Series is looking to be one of the clearest in recent memory in terms of what teams will play where.
The winner of the Southeastern Conference Championship Game will punch its ticket to the national championship, with the other team earning an at-large bid to play in the Sugar Bowl.
(Oregon/Oregon State....DON'T CHANGE COPY DESK, we'll change this once we know who wins this game tonight) will play Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, while the Orange Bowl seems to inevitably scream Cincinnati versus TCU in a battle of the undefeated.
The other "lock" of college football's conference championship weekend seems to be a Texas win over Nebraska, which would catapult the Longhorns into the national title game, making room for Boise State to most likely play Iowa in the Fiesta Bowl.
Knowing all the "set in stone" finishes to the year, Nebraska represents the last stick of dynamite in the BCS party, and NU defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh said he is expecting some postseason fireworks.
"I expect for us to win," Suh said. "I really don't see us as an underdog, but obviously they are 12-0 and we are 9-3, but we just have to go out there and play hard. We just need to make sure we take care of business and move on."
Cornhusker center Jacob Hickman said that teams are always defined by their seasons, and knowing that, it would be ludicrous if Nebraska was favored in any way on Saturday.
"This Texas team hasn't lost yet, so they deserve to be the favorite," Hickman said. "If we were the favorite, there would be something wrong. We've lost three games, and we should be the underdog.
"Does that mean we are going to go in with less confidence? Absolutely not."
In fact, the confidence level has been higher than ever in Lincoln, even after closer-than-predicted wins over Kansas State and Colorado to finish the year.
Nebraska coach Bo Pelini has stressed that the Huskers have spent a lot of time correcting mistakes and will be ready to go Saturday night against the Longhorns.
Hickman, who was on the 2006 Husker team that played Oklahoma in the conference championship game, said it's almost night and day when comparing the mindset of the teams coming into the title game.
"I like our chances a lot better this year," Hickman said. "I don't know if we had the same level of confidence on our team (in '06)."
Three years ago, the Huskers were pitted against Oklahoma for the conference crown in a game they went on to lose 21-7. That year, the Sooners rode the Big 12 Championship win to a Fiesta Bowl berth that went on to produce one of the most memorable games of the decade when Boise State upset OU.
There hasn't been much talk about the OU loss from the players who experienced that season, NU defensive tackle Jared Crick said, but he's more than ready to handle the change in game atmosphere when he steps foot onto the field in Arlington, Texas.
"They said it's a different atmosphere because it is a championship game with us playing for a Big 12 title," Crick said. "There is a little bit more electricity, but not many people have talked about '06, maybe because we lost that game, but no one has said much about it. It will be interesting to listen to it if they do."
The Sooners blasted NU 62-28 last season en route to their appearance in the national championship game against Florida. NU was an afterthought after the first quarter, trailing 35-0.
Hickman said the horrible feelings associated with losing that game will help this year's team guard against the Longhorns doing much of the same with a similar goal in mind.
"We can't do what we did in the Oklahoma game (last year), which was roll out into a train wreck and hand them 35 points," Hickman said. "That defies physics to come back from something like that. Against a team like Texas, we have to come out and have a great start."
The Huskers now find themselves just a day away from finding out if their stick of dynamite is armed and dangerous or if it's a dud. Texas has consistently remained a two-score favorite, and that's just fine according to the Huskers.
Both Hickman and Suh have joked that it would be fun to spoil Texas' hopes for a title, but their agenda isn't to ruin the Longhorns' season. Instead, it is to achieve something neither of them have ever done before.
"It's more of a, ‘Hey, I want to win a Big 12 Championship' attitude," Hickman said. "It's a pretty big deal for us to get the program in the right direction. Would it be fun to shock the world? Yeah. Mess up the BCS? Sounds like fun. But I'm in it to win a Big 12 Championship."
spencerschubert@dailynebraskan.com
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