• Ndamukong Suh after the Huskers' 17-3 win over Kansas State:



* * *

Athletes wait years for a moment like this one.

Just the idea pushes them through February weight workouts and July wind sprints, through mind-numbing meetings and maddening defeats.

Senior Night. Big 12 North title at stake. All the ESPN cameras pointing at you.

You make nine tackles, record 1½ sacks and break up two passes. And your opponent doesn't score a touchdown.

The occasion called for dancing and hugging and a little ego, too.

Yet as soon as Nebraska took its last snap, Ndamukong Suh was sprinting for the northwest tunnel. He was out of sight before the game clock hit zeroes.

That was the last time you saw Suh on this venerable field.

He is perhaps the greatest defensive player ever to wear red at Memorial Stadium. He has inspired awe from the Mel Kipers and Mark Mays.

He has changed the way knowledgeable football fans observe a game — surely, you didn't focus on defensive tackles before Suh came along.

Yet the big man is mysterious, too. Even his mother thinks so.

“He's a funny kid,” said Bernadette, who cheered her son from the east stands Saturday night. “He's my kid, but he's funny. He doesn't really like the attention.

“You have to pull things out of him. It's been that way since he was born.”

Suh arrived in Lincoln in the fall of 2005, at the peak of the Bill Callahan hype machine. He was part of the so-called No. 1 recruiting class in America.

Marlon Lucky and Harrison Beck and Craig Roark — who could forget Craig Roark!

During that period of Husker history, potential was the buzzword.

Callahan's strategy was clear: Keep stockpiling talent and championships will follow. Just wait.

But Callahan got exposed. Talent is coached, not recruited.

And most of his high-profile prospects never accomplished the simplest thing an athlete can do: improve.

Suh was traveling that path, too. He was better known for his temper than his skill. He eyed the NFL before he figured out how to play college football.

Thankfully, the Pelinis arrived just in time.

“He went from being a great athlete to a great football player,” Carl Pelini said.

Put another way, he transformed potential into production.

Most important: He epitomized substance at a time when Nebraska craved it.

And he helped personally lay the groundwork for the Pelini era by demonstrating what Bo could do with an eager prospect.

After a decade without a Big 12 championship, Suh has helped teach us something nobody who cheers Big Red should take for granted: Bo and Carl can teach football. Teach.

Now ESPN pundits are showering Suh with praise, calling him the nation's best player. A Heisman contender!

Not because Nebraska created a savvy marketing campaign — in fact, Bo seemed to go out of his way sometimes not to promote his best player.

Not because Suh plays for one of the nation's undefeated teams — seems you can't win a Heisman unless you do.

Not because he plays a glamour position — how many guys get the headlines without ever touching the football?

No, Suh got attention the same way this program was constructed.

He just dominated football games.

He harnessed his extraordinary passion to win and channeled it toward the film room and practice field. He mastered techniques: rush moves and pad level and hand placement.

And he never stopped to soak up the post-game cheers, to dance and hug and celebrate, to get sentimental. Not once.

Not even on Senior Night.

As Suh stood at the podium after a 17-3 win, darting from one routine question to the next without so much as a change in facial expression, his sister watched.

Ngum smiled at him.

“If he stopped to smell the roses,” she said, “he wouldn't be who he is.”

Contact the writer:

679-9899, dirk.chatelain@owh.com

• Senior night video:

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