Senior Center Jacob Hickman

Nebraska Football Weekly Press Conference
Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009
Memorial Stadium - Lincoln, Neb.
Pre-Kansas State

On his friendship with Ndamukong Suh
“We’ve gone against each other for a long time now. It’s kind of fun. If he gets me, he’ll give me a hard time and vice versa. We’ve had a lot of classes together with the same major. We’re around each other a lot. It’s been a good experience with him. He’s definitely made me a better player. I can assure you that. I know having blocked him every day there’s really not anybody that’s more difficult than I’ve gone against. It’s definitely made it a little bit easier on Saturdays for me.”

On Suh’s development as a player
“Last year he came off that knee injury and he wasn’t quite full go. I think it kind of took him a little bit to get his legs back under him all the way. You could tell by midseason when he really go to full go, you could really see what he became. This year the ceiling’s been blown off with how good he is.”

On Derek Meyer
“Old man’s been good to us. He’s one of the few bald guys on the team. I kid. I love Derek, we give him a hard time. He’s been a welcomed leader in the line group because we just have such a young offense. He’s come in and brought some experience and brought a lot of hard work in the summer workouts and everything like this. He really became a guy out in front, helping the team progress. He really became a senior leader. That was huge in a class that’s so small. He’s been really good for the team, really helping us out with his leadership qualities and as a player.”

On playing his last game at Memorial Stadium on Saturday
“We’ve been saying it’s one game at a time for so long, I don’t know how to change that outlook. But it hasn’t really sunk in that it’s my last one here yet. It kind of just feels like the same routine that I’ve been doing for so long. I don’t know, maybe it will feel a lot different on Saturday. I’m really kind of focused on it being the North title game so to speak. That’s pretty big for us. It kind of gets us back to where we wanted to on our goals for the year. That it is my last one makes it a little extra special. It hasn’t really sunk in yet on that respect, so we’ll see on Saturday.”

On being senior leaders by example with Suh this season
“I think it’s gone well for the most part. It’s kind of difficult having a relatively difficult young team, so you don’t have a ton of other guys as natural leaders by age and experience. We have younger guys stepping up, guys like Roy (Helu Jr.) and Niles (Paul) on offense have been doing a good job in that respect. But we kind of just wanted to really lead by example and do the right things. There were some times in the summer where we’d go out there and say that’s not good enough and stuff like that. For the most part, we really just kind of figured the best way for the two of us to do it was just go out there and do what we know how to do, and that’s work hard and show guys what you’re supposed to do.”

On if the offense has found its way the past couple of weeks
“It seems like it. I feel like we kind of have something working for us right now, just kind of hard-nosed, go at people, kind of like what you want to be as an offensive lineman anyway. We’re just kind of running the ball and if they want to load the box, I’d run some play action off that, and I think Zac (Lee) did a good job last week executing the passing aspect of our offense, and I think that seems like what we’re going to have to do to have success is we’re going to have to run the ball and take what they give us in the passing game.”

On his final game as a senior being for the North title
“It’s definitely our team goal to get that checked off the list. Senior day, the more I get asked about it, the more I try to make it sink in and just say, ‘yeah this is it.’ I can’t think about it that way right now for whatever reason. I guess it’s just been too many games. It’ll hit eventually. It is a big deal to have it mean as much as it does for my last game in the stadium. It would be huge to get a win, definitely go out the right way.”