LINCOLN — The Derek Meyer tale is one of a well-traveled football player, with a foreword rooted in Nebraska and its first chapters scribbled in purple ink.

The storybook ending could come Saturday.

Meyer, a senior offensive lineman for the Huskers, spent his first two college football seasons in Manhattan, Kan., playing for Kansas State. The Campbell, Neb., native will be in the mix at the guard position Saturday, when his former team visits Lincoln with a Big 12 North title on the line.

“You couldn't write a story like this,” Meyer said. “It's going to be a very emotional day. For me it's going to have a little more emotion to it.”

The 6-foot-5, 315-pound Meyer wasn't recruited by former NU coach Bill Callahan out of Silver Lake High School. He said the primary reason he went to K-State was the coaches: head coach Bill Snyder, offensive coordinator Dell Miller and the rest of the staff. So when Snyder retired following Meyer's first year in Manhattan, things changed.

Meyer stuck around for one season under new coach Ron Prince and staff, but said it “wasn't the right fit.”

“It was just time for me to move on,” Meyer said. “Over time, it was just time for me to take a different path and try my options somewhere else.”

He transferred to Nebraska and sat out all of last year, giving him one season with the Huskers.

And as fate would have it, the Big 12 North championship in his one season comes down to a game against KSU and Snyder, who returned to the Wildcats before this season. And on Senior Day at that.

“It's funny how things turn out, but it's going to make for a very special ending to my senior year,” Meyer said. “Now there's an added incentive in it that we're both playing for the North.”

He went to Manhattan for NU's 56-28 win over the Wildcats a season ago. Have no fear, though, Husker fans. There's no purple left in his wardrobe.

“It's all red,” he said.

His teammates have seen a little more fire this week out of Meyer, the guy they call the “old man” and rib about his lack of hair.

“He definitely wants to get after some of those guys,” fellow offensive lineman and senior Jacob Hickman said. “It definitely means a little more to him this week.”

But Meyer isn't sure how he'll feel at game time.

“It's hard to say exactly what's going to be running through my head,” he said. “It's going to be one of those things that we'll see how I feel when I run out of that tunnel.

“It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm going to enjoy every second of it. But you kind of have to put that aside because we're playing for a North title here. We're playing to get to Dallas, and that's the most important thing about Saturday's game. Right now we're in a very special spot, and all we have to do is go out and take care of business Saturday and we'll be right where we want to be.”

Whatever happens Saturday, Meyer said, Nebraska is right where he wants to be.

“I'm glad to be here,” he said. “This is home, and I wouldn't trade it for the world. This is definitely something I'm proud, very proud of. And I'm going to cherish every second of it.”

Contact the writer:

850-0781, nickrubek@hotmail.com

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