Nebraska's Ameer Abdullah, as running back and leader, packs wallop
USA TODAY Sports' Paul Myerberg spoke to Nebraska star Ameer Abdullah at Big Ten Media Days about the 2014 season and his NFL future.
(Photo: Bruce Thorson, USA TODAY Sports)
CHICAGO — Ameer Abdullah took in his first Auburn game when in elementary school, the guest of a childhood friend, and would continue to attend two games each season at Jordan-Hare Stadium through his junior year of high school, putting the Homewood, Ala., native firmly into the Tigers' camp.
Along the way, a dream was formed: Abdullah wanted to play college football and wanted to play college football at Auburn — but most of all, Abdullah, inspired by former Auburn stars Ronnie Brown and Carnell Williams, wanted to play running back.
The Tigers didn't oblige. Right before the first game of his senior year of high school, then-Auburn assistants Tommy Thigpen and Gus Malzahn told Abdullah the program wanted him not as a running back but a cornerback — joining other Southeastern Conference programs, such as Tennessee, Georgia and LSU, in viewing the three-star recruit as a defensive prospect.
"It kind of ate me up," Abdullah said. "It really hurt my feelings. At a young age, my dream was to play running back. For your dream school to tell you that, it really hurt."
Abdullah and Malzahn wouldn't again cross paths until Sept. 15, 2012, when Abdullah, then a sophomore running back at Nebraska, rushed for 167 yards and two touchdowns in a 42-13 victory against Malzahn-coached Arkansas State.
"He came up to me after the game and was like, 'Hey, you remember me? Man, you panned out pretty good,' " Abdullah recalled. "You could kind of tell in his face … 'I didn't think that you'd ever play running back on the collegiate level.' It was just a sweet moment for me. Not an I-told-you-so moment, but like, hey, I'm making strides in my career."
Three years after dropping the SEC to chase his running-back dreams, Abdullah stands not just as the one who got away — the rare difference-making player from inside its borders to leave the Southeast — but one of the nation's premier talents, a true national-award contender on a program starving to regain its toehold among college football's bluebloods.
"It just felt so right, that a team from the get-go wanted me to play running back for them," Abdullah said of Nebraska. "That showed they were invested in me. Just for them to give me the opportunity to do that, I feel like I owe them."
In short, the SEC's loss has been the Cornhuskers' gain. Those outside the program judge Abdullah on his on-field performance, the 1,690 yards rushing — ninth nationally a season ago — and first-team All-Big Ten honors; those inside Nebraska's doors marvel at the total package, the statistical output doubled by the sort of off-field qualities that will linger long after he's gone, Nebraska coach Bo Pelini said Tuesday.
Abdullah cracked the 100-yard mark six times as a sophomore, when he stepped in as the Cornhuskers' replacement for an injured Rex Burkhead, and rushed for at least 105 yards in every game but two last fall — both Nebraska losses, unsurprisingly.
His is a running style of great explosiveness and equal violence, a series of up-field cuts, lowered shoulders and high-step speed that fits snugly into the program's long and storied line of production at the position: Rozier, Green, Phillips, Craig — and now, Abdullah.
"Let me tell you, you have an Ameer Abdullah, it makes your job a lot easier," Pelini said.
Ameer Abdullah was the student-athlete speaker at the league's kickoff luncheon, taking the stage among his conference peers to share a message of finding the balance between athletics and academics.(Photo: Jerry Lai, USA TODAY Sports)
Case in point: Abdullah commandeered an early summer team meeting from his coach's grasp, standing up among the red-clad crowd to "get after some kids on the team," Pelini recounted — leaving the Cornhuskers' seventh-year coach with a "warm feeling inside."
He'll talk, not always loud, but with force and purpose, and inside the Cornhuskers' locker room, his words carry immense weight. Abdullah says what needs to be said, safety Corey Cooper said — and always leads by example, instilling Nebraska's occasionally rudderless roster with a sense of direction.
"Good friends you take to the movies; great teammates you go to battle with," senior wide receiver Kenny Bell said. "What's great about Ameer is that he's both. When it's time to go to work, don't step on his shoes. He'll call you out if you're not working hard. But at the same time, I couldn't ask for a better friend or a more influential friend.
"He makes all the right decisions. He does all the right stuff. He's a genuinely great guy."
He's also the Big Ten's gold standard: Abdullah was the student-athlete speaker at the league's kickoff luncheon, taking the stage among his conference peers to share a message of finding the balance between athletics and academics.
"Nothing is guaranteed, but if we continue to strive to educate ourselves athletically, academically and personally, then maybe, just maybe, one day we can reach our full potential," Abdullah said.
Ameer Abdullay rushed for 1,690 yards — ninth nationally a season ago — and earned first-team All-Big Ten honors.(Photo: Rick Osentoski, USA TODAY Sports)
In pads and out, he stands within range of fulfilling this potential.
After acing a summer course, Abdullah said he's "on the hoof" of earning Academic All-American accolades; he'd be the 315th student-athlete in Nebraska history to earn the honor, the most of any school in the country. With another banner performance in 2014, Abdullah would also become the first player in program history to notch three 1,000-yard seasons.
It's this balance that makes Abdullah a Heisman Trophy contender, the potential antidote to trophy controversy — the thinking man's option, perhaps, backed by yardage, touchdowns, grades and the built-in name recognition inherent to the Nebraska brand.
"We have a saying in Nebraska: We don't rise to the occasion; we fall back on our training," Abdullah said. "So I feel like if I train myself to get ready for that moment, when it comes it's going to be much more rewarding — much more appropriate."
As he enters the first days of fall camp, the linchpin of the Cornhuskers' Rose Bowl hopes attempts yet another balancing act: Of the promise that lies ahead, of a final season in Lincoln, and of the here and now, of writing a legacy in real time.
"I know it sounds stupid, but a lot of people envision it but they don't believe that they can go out and be an Academic All-American, be one of the top backs in the country and be a shining example for the Big Ten," he said.
"It means a lot. You never know what kind of history you're writing. You never know who's going to tell your story. Just the fact that my story is maybe a story that may be told, you know, in the future."
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