Big Ben Is Ready for Prime Time

Some things you might not know about Ben Roethlisberger, the stately Super Bowl quarterback with the British landmark nickname and American revolutionary beard:

He freak dances.

Did you see the him skipping wildly along the sidelines Sunday after throwing a falling-left, flailing-right, floating-perfectly touchdown pass for the Pittsburgh Steelers during their 34-17 victory over the Denver Broncos in the AFC championship game?

That was him, waving his hands in a six-shooter motion that could be best described as part disco and part seizure.

“I was fired up, I couldn’t breathe,” he said. “I forgot I was in Mile High. I lost my oxygen.”

He’s dying to shave.

Have you seen the botanical-looking growth on his cheeks and chin? He has been sprouting it since the Steelers were 7-5 and he was too depressed to shave. He has yet to lose with it, so now he itches and endures.

“This means I have to wear this two more weeks?” he said.

He’s not afraid to cry.

Last season, standing on the sideline after his three rookie interceptions led the Steelers to a loss to the New England Patriots in the AFC championship game, Roethlisberger weepingly promised veteran running back Jerome Bettis that he would bring him to the Super Bowl if only Bettis would play one more season.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to cry and apologize to him that I didn’t get him there this year,” Roethlisberger said.

He rings.

Goodness, how this Big Ben rings. His clear tones Sunday were of calm and inspiration and Motown.

He stepped onto Invesco Field as the kid who, if he played it safe and smart and didn’t mess up, could accompany his veteran team to the Super Bowl.

He walked off as the man who dragged them there.

In three short hours, he went from hood ornament to engine, from caretaker to caregiver, 275 yards passing, two touchdown passes, one touchdown run, zero costly mistakes and several added identities.

He’s now Tom Brady with messed-up hair, Donovan McNabb with a baseball cap on backward, Kurt Warner with a smirk.

He’s now the new face of a Super Bowl, the second-youngest quarterback to lead a team there, just 23 years 11 months old, greener than all but Dan Marino.

Which may explain why, an hour after the game, he was still sitting in front of his locker in full uniform and eye black, scratching his beard.

“That’s why I hate it, it really itches,” he said.

And his youth may also explain why, soon thereafter, Roethlisberger walked into the postgame news conference dressed in a dark suit coat and slacks ... while also wearing a wrinkled, white, untucked Super Bowl T-shirt.

“It’s a growing-up process,” he said.

Quicker for some than others.

Across the field, veteran Bronco quarterback Jake Plummer failed again in his bid to go from journeyman to genuine.

Where Roethlisberger’s beard made him look tough, Plummer’s long beard made him look like just another bum, as he threw two silly interceptions, lost two dumb fumbles and gained a new nickname.

Jake the Shakes.

“I’m taking the blame for this one,” Plummer said, and properly so.

The underdog Steelers focused on the Bronco running game to force Plummer to beat them. He couldn’t.

The Broncos attacked the Steeler running game to force Roethlisberger to beat them. Did he ever.

“A lot of people have said that if we can’t throw the ball, we can’t win the game,” Roethlisberger said. “Myself, the line, we took offense of that.”

He started out lucky, throwing a forced sidelinepass on the Steelers’ fourth play from scrimmage, watching it bounce off the hands of the Broncos’ Champ Bailey before Hines Ward pulled it in.

If Bailey makes the interception, he runs half the field untouched for a touchdown. But Ward made the catch for a first down, and the heat was on, in more ways than one.

Steeler Coach Bill Cowher pulled Roethlisberger aside.

“I said, ‘Let’s not go there ... be careful with this thing,’ ” he said.

The kid listened, completing another third-down pass on the drive that led to a field goal.

On the Steelers’ second drive, after a Plummer fumble, the kid pump-faked half the Bronco defense into Kansas and threw to uncovered Cedrick Wilson for a 12-yard touchdown.

On the their third drive, Roethlisberger completed three third-down passes that led to a Jerome Bettis sledgehammer run for another touchdown.

By then, even that Steeler guard who last season ripped management for starting the rookie quarterback was in awe.

“Man, he sure looks like he’s been playing for longer than two years,” said Alan Faneca.

Maybe it’s because, since beginning his career as the third quarterback taken in the 2004 draft -- after Eli Manning and Philip Rivers -- the Miami of Ohio standout has gone to two conference title games and has a 26-4 record as a starter?

Or maybe it’s because, wearing No. 7 in honor of childhood hero John Elway, he was in the process of punking Elway’s team in Elway’s house while the great one watched from a luxury suite?

“I know he’s not putting up a lot of stats like Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, but he needs to be mentioned with the great quarterbacks of today,” Ward said.

This was chillingly clear with seven seconds left in the second quarter, when Roethlisberger scrambled to the left, threw to the right, and lofted a perfect pass through two sets of Bronco arms and into the chest of Ward for an 17-yard touchdown play that essentially ended the game at halftime.

No wonder he freaked.

And the most amazing thing about it?

“That’s something he practiced on,” said Ward, shaking his head.

To which Roethlisberger shook his shaggy head.

“I’m a long way from mastering anything,” he said.

Except admiration from a sports nation that will be staring at little else for the next two weeks. It will be Super Bowl Big Ben in Detroit. It will be the Seattle Seahawks against the Big Bens.

It is a nickname, incidentally, that refers not to the Great Clock of Westminster, but to the hour bell inside.

Something else you might not have known about the kid, huh? Cover your ears. More rings coming.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.