In his Tuesday afternoon teleconference, Nebraska head coach Tom Osborne compared Huskie quarterback and Heisman candidate Stacey Robinson with Colorado quarterback Darian Hagan, who finished fifth in last year’s Heisman Trophy voting.

“He’s like Hagan because he can throw it over people’s heads,” he said. “And if he misses, the ball usually goes out-of-bounds. For what they (NIU) do, he’s excellent.”

Robinson was ranked as the No. 3 all-purpose quarterback by Street & Smith’s magazine behind Hagan and Virginia’s Shawn Moore in their 1990 issue.

“Robinson is a great runner and he is also a very capable passer,” Osborne said. “They have a very good passing game.”

Osborne will get a second look at Robinson this Saturday (Sept. 8) when NIU makes its second trip to Lincoln in as many years to face the No. 10 Cornhuskers.

Last year, the Huskies scored 17 points off of five Nebraska turnovers in the first half and went into the locker room at halftime tied. In the second half, Nebraska scored on its first four possessions and went on to win 48-17.

In their 13-0 win last week against Baylor, the ‘Huskers struggled offensively but were saved by their defense, which held the Bears to only 164 yards offense. Nebraska’s only touchdown came with :22 remaining in the fourth quarter.

“One of our problems in scoring was not having the ball very much,” Osborne said. “We allowed them to run at us and they controlled the ball a good deal of the time.”

Osborne said that NIU will challenge their defense more than Baylor did.

“They’re still basically a wishbone team,” he said. “They’ll keep probing around until they find one thing where we come up short. Hopefully, they won’t find it.”

Nebraska has seven defensive starters returning, but only two on offense in left tackle Tom Punt and left guard Jim Wanek.

Some big names gone from the 1989 ‘Husker offense are All-Big Eight quarterback Gerry Gdowski, I-back Ken Clark, the school’s No. 2 all-time rusher, three-year fullback Bryan Carpenter and two All-America linemen in center Jake Young and tackle Doug Glaser.

Mike Grant, the ‘Huskers starting quarterback last week, was injured and was not practicing early this week, according to Osborne. If he is unable to start Saturday, the likely candidate to replace him is Mickey Joseph, who saw action against the Huskies last year behind Gdowski. All-Big Eight cornerback Bruce Pickens is also questionable with a sprained ankle.

Osborne said that the Huskies have more experience than their last opponent, Baylor.

“NIU is a very experienced team, we won’t play a team with as many returning starters,” he said. “Anytime you have 10 starters returning on offense, you can do more stuff. They’re (NIU) doing a lot of things now.

“We had three weeks to prepare for Baylor, but we have only four days to prepare for NIU. They could beat us if we don’t play well.”

NIU head coach Jerry Pettibone was the Cornhusker recruiting coordinator from 1979-81 under Osborne. He was involved in bringing All-America receiver Irving Fryar and 1983 Heisman Trophy winner Mike Rozier to Nebraska.

“Pettibone is a good recruiter. He’s stayed close to home and has developed people who may have been overlooked by other schools,” he said. “He certainly should be commended for building a good team.”

When the two squads take the field Saturday and Osborne stands on the opposite sideline from his former assistant, he is looking forward to a better performance from his offense.

“I think it will be an interesting game,” he said. “Hopefully not so interesting that it comes down to the last 22 seconds.”