Ozigbo living up to nameOzigbo living up to name
Football

Ozigbo living up to name

By Brian Rosenthal / Huskers.com

Devine Ozigbo patiently waited, even if only a split second, for the open lane he needed. He cut back and entered the gaping hole center Dylan Utter and left guard Sam Hahn had created on the zone read play. He burst ahead and cruised into the end zone.

On his 7-yard touchdown run in the third quarter against Oregon, the Nebraska sophomore running back, in essence, lived up to his name.

In God’s time, everything is best.

That’s what his mother, Yaiye Ozigbo, says is the true meaning of Devine.

He takes it to heart, too.

“Sometimes I’m impatient and want things now,” Ozigbo said. “I have to talk to myself, calm myself down, realize things are going to come. My brother has always helped me with that. ‘Just do what you got to do, and your time will come.’ You just got to ride the ride and let Him do what He does.”

Those words have been prophetic for Ozigbo, who leads the Huskers in rushing as No. 20 Nebraska (3-0) opens the Big Ten Conference season at Northwestern (1-2) on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. (BTN).

Ozigbo leaned heavily on his brother’s advice the August before his true freshman season, when fans and media unabashedly salivated over the late addition of touted running back Jordan Stevenson.

You better believe Ozigbo noticed the new guy in the room.

“At first I was a little butt-hurt, but then I had to get over it,” Ozigbo said. “These are the things that happen. You just got to make sure you play your best game and beat the man next to you. Regardless of if he was here or he wasn’t here, I was going to have to beat some other guys out.

“Just add him to the list.”

Ozigbo’s brother, who’s in graduate school, his parents, his coaches from home in Sachse, Texas, and some of his Nebraska teammates talked to him, told him to focus.

In God’s time, everything is best.

“He just took it all in stride,” Nebraska running backs coach Reggie Davis said. “It was a little blow early, but he thought about it, sat down, talked about it a little bit and realized, ‘You know what? It’s about competition. It’s about competition.

“We recruit every year, so there’s going to be somebody coming in. You’ve got to go out and prove every year that you deserve to have a spot.”

The heralded Stevenson, who showed up to fall camp overweight, quit the team after three months.

Meanwhile, Ozigbo ended his true freshman season with career highs of 20 carries and 80 yards against UCLA in the Foster Farms Bowl. That spring-boarded him into the spring and offseason, as he competed with senior Terrell Newby for the No. 1 job.

Newby still holds that position, but Ozigbo has the most carries (53) of any Husker running back through three games.

His 242 rushing yards are tops on the team, too, and more than he collected through 11 games as a backup last season. So are his four touchdowns (he scored one in 2015). He’s averaging 4.6 yards per carry.

Oh, and he’s displayed patience on the field, too, as described on his aforementioned touchdown run.

“It definitely takes a lot of time,” Ozigbo said. “It’s something you practice and the coach talks about. You can do it according to scheme sometimes, the way the defense plays. So if you have a defense that can pursue, there’s cutback lanes, but you have to slow yourself down, tempo it, then hit ‘em when they open up. That’s one thing you can talk about, but you also have to practice.”

Let’s not forget about another important aspect of Ozigbo’s game that’s helped him see increased playing time – his blocking.

Quarterback Tommy Armstrong Jr. likely doesn’t score his game-winning 34-yard touchdown run against Oregon without Ozigbo’s key cut block on Oregon linebacker Johnny Grain III at the 28-yard line.

“I had two options: I could either square him up or cut him, so the way he was positioned, I just thought that was the best way to do it, so I just threw at him,” Ozigbo said. “It worked. We won, so it was good.”

You’ll hear few complaints from Davis.

“If he’d have got the guy on the ground, it would’ve been perfect,” Davis said. “It was pretty close.”

Ozigbo came to Nebraska having been no stranger to blocking as a running back. Sachse High School threw the football. A lot.

“We had the number one passing offense my sophomore through senior year. Our quarterback was mobile, so we did some lead plays and things like that as well,” Ozigbo said.

“It is a little different because in college you’ve got to be a little more precise. Guys are stronger and faster, so it’s not going to be nearly as easy. It took some getting used to. Overall, I’m still getting good at it but there’s a lot more I can improve on.”

Ozigbo, who excelled as a receiver out of the backfield in high school, rushed for 795 yards his senior season. He collected scholarship offers from Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas State, Miami, Utah and Minnesota before finally committing to … Iowa State.

“And then late in the process,” Ozigbo said, “I just didn’t think that was going to be a good fit for me.”

He then planned on committing to Boise State until he began hearing from members of the newly-hired Nebraska coaching staff a couple of days before the Huskers’ 2014 Holiday Bowl game against USC.

“I was like, ‘If they offer, that’s where I’m going, no matter what.’ I didn’t even have to take the visit,” Ozigbo said. “I knew the tradition and the people. I didn’t know much, but I knew enough to where if I got an offer, I knew I wanted to go there.

“Ameer (Abdullah) was playing at the time, I knew Rex (Burkhead) because Rex is from Plano and that’s like 5 minutes from where I’m from, so he was pretty big around those parts. I just thought I could follow it and be the next.”

In God’s time, everything is best.

Sure enough, Nebraska offered, and Ozigbo, who committed without visiting, quickly proved to the new coaching staff he could indeed contribute immediately.

“Devine has always been a pretty smart player,” Davis said. “He was able to come in and pick up on the offense relatively quickly as a (true) freshman, having come from an offense that was completely different.

“His mental capacity is something that really helps him out a lot, not to mention that he’s a good athlete. A lot of times young players have trouble catching on to the cerebral part of the game. He does a pretty good job that way.”

Reach Brian at brosenthal@huskers.com or follow him on Twitter @GBRosenthal.