Octavian would have done wonders fro us this year.
Octavien says he'll be better than ever in 2006
The screws will come out of his leg Wednesday. Two weeks after that, he’ll run again. How far he’ll run, Steve Octavien can’t be sure. But for a guy who’s gone under a surgeon’s knife twice in two months, he’s thinking big. He’s thinking of next football season.
“Same goals as (this) year,” the Husker junior linebacker says of a season 10 months away. “Finalist for the Butkus (Award) and all that stuff.”
If the football gods thought a season-ending injury could destroy Octavien’s will, they apparently put the hex on the wrong guy.
If anyone in the Husker camp has reason to sulk this season, it’s Octavien. New to the program this year, the Naples, Fla., native lived up to the preseason acclaim given him for all of one quarter against Maine.
He was everywhere, a red blur, loudly introducing himself to Husker Nation with two tackles on the first three plays. You could almost hear the whispers throughout the stadium. This guy’s going to be great ...
And then, just like that, No. 15 was down and the whispers turned to moans. While trying to block on special teams, a Maine player landed awkwardly on his left leg while it was bent sideways. Octavien hobbled off the field. He thought it was just a sprain.
In reality, he had torn a ligament and broken his fibula. His promising season was over 50 seconds into the second quarter of the season opener.
This guy’s got to be angry.
No, he tells you. He really isn’t.
“I don’t question God,” he says after watching a midweek Husker practice. “I know the Lord has special things for me, so I don’t question anything I can’t do anything about.
“What’s that going to do if I sit and get depressed? It’s not going to do anything. If I sit there and cry and get mad, it’ll lead to nothing.”
A medical redshirt has eased the pain for Octavien. Since he was injured so early in the season, he’ll still have two seasons of eligibility.
He is guarded when it comes to discussing if his presence would have changed anything this year. Would a speedy, ball-sniffing Octavien have been the difference between defeat and victory against a Texas Tech? It’s a question with no sure answer.
But there seems no denying the Huskers could at least use this guy’s attitude.
“There’s no doubt there’s an added energy Steve brings to our defense,” acknowledges defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove. “Losing a player like him was a big blow.”
To know the attitude the 6-foot, 235-pound Octavien exudes, you need only hear him talk about Nebraska’s recent 31-24 loss to Oklahoma.
“I wanted to yell at them at halftime,” he says of his teammates. “They were down and being quiet and stuff like that. I just don’t like the (lack of) swagger sometimes that we have on our team. You know, Nebraska, the N, that represents a lot. You know, dominance. No one’s supposed to come here and do that stuff (to us).
“The only tough teams that we’re supposed to have every year, I personally believe, are Oklahoma and Colorado. … I believe everybody else should be a rollover. I just want the attitude back. … The difference between what we have now and the teams (Nebraska) used to have is I guess that now we believe that everybody can compete with us.”
Octavien stands on the sideline for all the home games. When it comes to the road games, like this Saturday at Kansas, he must sit in the crowd, otherwise he’d be counted as part of the travel squad.
“The seats are bad,” he says. “I’m usually stuck in the corner somewhere.” Even so, he has to be there. He couldn’t stand not to.
For some guys, like Husker junior linebacker Stewart Bradley, the games are too painful to watch.
Octavien says Bradley, who suffered a season-ending knee injury against Texas Tech, wanted to leave at halftime during the OU game.
“It tears him up,” Octavien says. “I try to help him. It’s like, ‘There’s nothing you can do so you might as well watch.’”
Ever the optimist, Octavien even likes to think of his leg injury as a potential blessing. Since that injury already had him out for this season, it gave him time to have a nagging left shoulder operated on. That procedure occurred about three weeks ago.
“I guess I was playing football with a torn labrum for four years now,” Octavien says.
He had always known something was wrong. His shoulder had been popping out of place during games since he was a junior in high school.
It hurt something awful, but Octavien wasn’t leaving a game unless the arm fell off, and even then, he likely would have tried to sew the thing back on.
“In the first half of the spring game, it popped out. No one knew but it did,” he says. “It was numb. I can’t even describe what happens when it pops out. My mind goes crazy.”
Sometimes after it popped out, Octavien would look down at his arm and think it had twisted up like a pretzel. It was just his mind messing with him.
He flashes a grin when thinking about next season, loaded again with a healthy leg and a shoulder that doesn’t wander.
“I should be a new bionic guy.”
Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7438 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.
