By Tom Shatel

Copyright omaha

LINCOLN — Hello, big-game week. I’ve missed you.

These weeks are just different.

It can be hard to describe, but you can feel it. There’s a different vibe, an energy, around the team and fans. Even the media sit up straight.

It has been a long time since I’ve felt it around Nebraska.

Michigan is the reason — and so is Nebraska.

Husker football was always defined by big games. It was about the pursuit of titles, of excellence.

That meant playing big games. Every year.

Tom Osborne couldn’t win the big one. Then he couldn’t stop winning them.

Big games are what college football is all about. You waited all year for them, and when they arrived, it was hard for fans to breath. There was going to be celebration or heartbreak, you were going to remember that season by either one.

There have been all kinds of big ones at Nebraska, many of them Shakespearean dramas against Oklahoma. After one such loss to OU, former World-Herald columnist Michael Kelly wrote that Husker fans should cry if they felt like it.

That won’t be on the line against Michigan. But this is a big one.

Everyone has their definition. Here’s mine this week:

1. Nebraska looks capable of winning

There have been big brand-name opponents on the schedule in recent years, but the Huskers were in no shape to win a lot of those games. It’s hard to get pumped for a “big game” when the point spread is double digits.

The last time Michigan came to Lincoln two years ago, it was seen as a three-hour visit to the dentist Nebraska needed to get through as soon as possible.

That’s not the case this time.

Michigan has a five-star quarterback. So does Nebraska. Michigan is big and physical. So are the Huskers. Michigan has a veteran, elite defensive coordinator. Nebraska counters with a veteran, elite offensive coordinator.

If anything — because Michigan’s coach is suspended and NU has the home field — the scales might be slightly tilted toward the Huskers.

Scales don’t make plays, players do. But Nebraska looks ready to win one of these.

2. It feels like it could be a program-changing win for Nebraska

Big games are usually for tangible stakes. A league championship. A playoff berth. An Oaken Bucket.

But for Nebraska, there’s something else: Opportunity.

Matt Rhule has built his program for this moment. The prize is belief. Confidence. Proof.

And, yes, that elusive program momentum.

It’s the sort of thing you can’t quantify until it happens. Like that other big win against Michigan, way, way back in the 1962 archives, before NU had a lot of practice at the big ones.

It was the second game of Bob Devaney’s first season when Dennis Claridge and Thunder Thornton went to the Big House and pulled off a 25-13 stunner. That was as the door-smashing game for the Devaney 4ra.

What might a win Saturday over a Big Ten elite program do for the home team, stuck in its own quicksand for so long?

Hard to say, but a lot of Husker fans would like to find out.

It’s a measuring stick for NU, and there is a lot to watch.

A battle of five-star quarterbacks in Dylan Raiola and Bryce Underwood: These games are the reason you recruit five-star quarterbacks. On the biggest stages, an elite play-making quarterback can be the difference.

It’s a big one for the Michigan native under center for Nebraska. Raiola has all the tools and a brilliant head for the game. But big games are often about heart for quarterbacks.

Can he will his team to victory? Can he make a football play outside of the scheme when his team needs it?

Games like this are why Raiola came to Nebraska.

Chess moves and other assorted practical jokes by the two defensive coordinators Wink Martindale and John Butler: There will be all kinds of sleight-of-hand presnap looks and pressure surprises to try to throw off the hot shot quarterbacks. Both Martindale and Butler have been around a long time, mostly in the NFL, with Martindale a longer history as a coordinator. This should be great fun.

Also worth noting is the matchup between Martindale and NU’s offensive guru Dana Holgorsen — a veteran of the college game. This kind of game is why Holgorsen was hired. He can make a difference.

Michigan interim coach Biff Poggi gushed about how tough it is to play in Memorial Stadium: That’s a nice sentiment, but seems forever since that has been true. Too many opponents have made themselves at home in Lincoln the past decade or so.

The crowd will be electric. Might this be the game that turns Memorial Stadium back into that house of horrors for the visitors?

Mike Ekeler, come on down: This figures to be the kind of tight fit, white-knuckler that is won by a special teams play.

That is, a big game.

Welcome back. Feels good, doesn’t it?