Huskers excited for 'electric' atmosphere vs. Colorado but will also face emotional test

When the Nebraska Cornhuskers run out of the tunnel and onto the field at Memorial Stadium on Saturday, in front of a packed house, under the lights of primetime, with a rival on the other sideline and on national television, it will be test time.

The Week 2 game is no longer a battle between conference foes and isn't very high-stakes on paper, but it will be significant for the rest of Nebraska's season and the coming ones.

The Huskers will surely be challenged more throughout the game by Colorado than they were against UTEP, but they'll also face an emotional test.

True freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola hasn't even attended a night game at Nebraska before, let alone played in a nationally televised one against a rival.

He said this week that he thinks of it as “just another game … just business as usual and our fans will show out like I know they will and one of the best atmospheres in college football.”

He's absolutely right in that Memorial Stadium will be rocking, providing a jolt for the Huskers, but it will be harder to think of it as just another game when they're out there.

The heightened atmosphere in the stadium means Nebraska will also have to manage that emotion, stay locked in on the task at hand and their assignments, and not get carried away by the energy or pressure that comes with more eyes on them.

“I mean, it’s a night game, rivalry game, I know it’s gonna be electric," junior defensive lineman Jimari Butler said. "I’m looking forward to it."

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“If we play differently because of who we’re playing, then we’re not really who we say we are. We play up to our standard, and sometimes we don’t get to our standard, but the goal this week is to play to our standard, and TV cameras and eyeballs shouldn’t affect that," head coach Matt Rhule said before adding, "I’m sure it does (affect players) — it’s human nature — but we don’t want it to.”

That's something Rhule has said multiple times before, including ahead of last week's game, but he knows this game will be a bigger test.

The head coach said he showed his team a replay of last summer's Bud Crawford-Errol Spence boxing match this week to see how “stoic, stone-faced, methodical” Crawford was. How he locked in and wasn't overcome by emotion.

“That to me is what a great football team looks like. It’s not emotional, it’s not swinging from side to side, it’s just very methodical and stoic and stone-faced,” Rhule said.

He knows it's going to be loud, and he wants that.

“How loud we can be in a stadium really impacts the game,” Rhule said this week. “It’s not just, ‘Hey, third down, try to make them jump offsides’ anymore. Now it’s like, make it really hard for them to hear to play calls and the checks because it was hard for us at times.”

Rhule noted that even forcing a team to use hand signals for snaps instead of verbal communication is a big advantage for the defensive line, and every little edge helps.

“I thought our crowd was awesome," Rhule continued. "I’m not saying that so like, hey, they come back next week, I’m saying that like, hey, the louder we can be every week, it’s really important.”

He noted against UTEP that he was forced to go from a single-ear headset to a double due to the crowd noise and will know better for this weekend. Again, he wants the edge provided by that noise and expects even more on Saturday.

“I think it’ll be great," he said. "Again, there’s a reason why you want to play rivalry games … I think it’ll be rocking. I thought this past weekend was rocking … I think it’ll be a great, great, great atmosphere. Night game, people have all day to kind of get themselves ready for the game and it should be loud, it should be a home field advantage. It was loud there last year, it should be a home field … like I said, Sunday, let’s all be Nebraska nice on Sunday but it should be a loud, loud, raucous, good atmosphere.”

Colorado coach Deion Sanders said his team started preparing for the noise and atmosphere right away at the beginning of this week, expecting a raucous crowd. But Rhule also acknowledged that the Huskers have to become familiar with everything Saturday will bring.

“We’re gonna play a lot of night games," he said. "I think we’re going to be a team that people want to have on national TV, primetime games, hopefully eventually, so we've got to get used to it.”

For now, the Huskers aren't used to it, so it's unclear how they'll handle it. Yet, that also makes Saturday another opportunity to prove how much they've grown from the past couple of seasons, something they worked for all offseason.

“I want us to enjoy this," Rhule said. "We’re obviously having this opportunity because of Colorado and what they bring, but our fans are here because of us, so we’ll play for our fans, we’ll play for our families, we’ll play for each other, and play for the state of Nebraska.”