Heisman Circuit Didn’t Faze Crouch

After four days of practice in Southern California, Nebraska football players were given Friday off. No meetings. No workouts.

Cornhusker quarterback Eric Crouch has not had many free days since the week before the Heisman Trophy announcement on Dec. 8. Crouch, a fifth-year senior accepted the award in New York and has been on the go ever since. “I’ve always been a person who just wants to kind of be normal, who doesn’t want all that attention,” Crouch said earlier this week. “I don’t feel I’m better than anybody or have done anything special that deserves special attention or credit.”

Crouch passed for 1,510 yards and seven touchdowns and rushed for 1,115 yards and 18 touchdowns for the 11-1 Cornhuskers. The Heisman was one of several national awards he won. He also graduated, with a degree in exercise science, last Saturday.

He has tried to maintain a low profile since the Cornhuskers arrived here Monday, preferring to concentrate on preparations for Thursday’s BCS national championship game against unbeaten Miami at the Rose Bowl.

“The Heisman Trophy is kind of behind me,” Crouch said. “It was wonderful to win that award and I will have that the rest of my life. But this opportunity that’s in front of me won’t be, so I have to take advantage of that.”

Coach Frank Solich said Crouch did not miss many workouts while on the awards circuit and has not been rusty since his return.

“He’s not one to get tied up in that and come back and just think things are going to just work automatically,” Solich said. “He knows that in order for any football player to play great, you have to really prepare well.”

Crouch, 6 feet 1 and 200 pounds, acknowledges that he might have to switch positions as a pro. But he considers himself a quarterback.

“Any time I’ve been asked to throw the football, I’ve completed [55.6%] of my passes and converted a lot of third downs,” he said. “Scouts will look at consistency, accuracy and arm strength and I feel like I have all those things. I just have to go out and prove myself in a system where you’re throwing more than 10 or 15 times a game.”

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Nebraska bought 25,300 Rose Bowl tickets at a cost of just under $3.8 million, according to a report in the Omaha-World Herald.

The tickets were sold at face value, $150 each. The school said that 18,000 were sold to athletic department donors, 4,300 to the public and 1,000 to students. The remaining 2,000 were divided among football players, who got 1,100; the band, 425; athletic department staff and families, 225, and the chancellor’s office, 250.

A few hours after practice today, the Cornhuskers will participate in the 46th annual Lawry’s Beef Bowl at Lawry’s The Prime Rib restaurant in Beverly Hills.