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By Jeff Griesch
Huskers.com
All this summer on Huskers.com, we are featuring football players who have enjoyed outstanding professional careers by making the transition from Nebraska to the NFL. Russ Hochstein has helped New England to a pair of Super Bowl titles in his five seasons with the Patriots. He enters his seventh NFL season in 2007.
Hochstein, a native of Hartington, Neb., and a graduate of Cedar Catholic High School, earned All-America honors from The Sporting News as an offensive guard at Nebraska in 2000. A team captain for the Huskers as a senior, Hochstein helped Nebraska to an NCAA rushing crown in 2000, when NU averaged 349.3 yards per game on the ground.
Hochstein was a contributor to Nebraska's 1997 national championship season as a freshman, and helped the Huskers to a Big 12 championship and a No. 2 final national ranking in the ESPN/USA Today/Coaches Poll as a junior in 1999. His senior season, Nebraska ended with a 10-2 mark that included a 66-17 pounding of Northwestern in the Alamo Bowl. He started the final 29 games of his NU career.
Following his All-America career at Nebraska, Hochstein was chosen in the fifth round of the 2001 NFL Draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He spent just one season in Tampa, before joining the Patriots in 2002. He has spent five seasons in New England and helped the Patriots to championships in Super Bowl XXXVIII and Super Bowl XXXVIV. He is one 45 former Huskers to make an appearance on football's grandest stage.