Walk-on transfer Criss chasing a Husker dream
He showed up to Lincoln about eight weeks ago with no guarantee he’d be a Husker.
“Pretty much a leap of faith,” Scott Criss says.
Any Nebraska boy could understand. Some leaps are worth the risk.
Criss had been on scholarship at the University of Wyoming for a year, an offensive lineman for the Cowboys.
Good experience. Learned plenty of football.
But … but …
“It was very weird being called a Wyoming Cowboy when I’ve always been told you try to be a Nebraska Cornhusker,” Criss says.
The Omaha Creighton Prep grad kept thinking about the story of Derek Meyer. Criss even kept an article about Meyer in his room.
Meyer, a native Nebraskan who attended Silver Lake High School, had been on scholarship as an offensive lineman at Kansas State. He spent three seasons as a Wildcat.
But after Meyer’s first year in Manhattan, coach Bill Snyder retired. Ron Prince took over. It wasn’t the right fit.
Meyer needed a change of scenery. Where better to go than home?
So Meyer sat out two football seasons (2007 and 2008) waiting for the chance to play one — just one — for the Huskers.
“It would have been worth it even if I had walked on and didn’t play at all,” Meyer says. “But I got rewarded.”
Yep. Did the Tunnel Walk, earned some playing time and a scholarship last year.
“That will stick with me forever,” Meyer says. “That’s something I can sit down and say 40 or 50 years from now to my grandkids: I lettered on the Husker football team.”
A good dream to live. Criss wondered if maybe he could do the same.
But because Wyoming hadn’t given him a scholarship release, Criss couldn’t talk to anybody at Nebraska until he enrolled in classes in Lincoln.
The 6-foot-4, 270-pound Criss had been offered a walk-on invitation by Nebraska coming out of high school, but he had no certainty that the door would still be open when he showed up this summer.
He enrolled in classes. He visited Husker offensive line coach Barney Cotton. He got good news.
“He was surprised to hear from me, but he was also excited because he wanted me to walk on real bad last year,” Criss says. “So when I told him I wanted to do the walk-on experience now, he was pretty excited.”
He’ll play center. He’ll have to redshirt this fall. But Criss will then have three years to be a Husker.
“It’s just growing up with the Big Red,” Criss says. “It’s hard to grow up without wanting to play football at Nebraska.”
It’s that shared feeling that has made so many wave away scholarships just to take their shots in Lincoln.
Mathew May, the Husker linebacker who walked on from Imperial, once called it the “what-if factor.”
“I’ve heard many times where guys always looked back and wondered, ‘What would have happened if I took a chance?’” May said after receiving his first snaps as a Husker during the 2008 season.
What if? What if?
Meyer is thankful he answered that question.
He works at a chemical company in his hometown of Campbell now. But his season as a Husker is hard to keep off his mind.
“It was everything and more. There are a lot of days where I’ll be at work, where I just kind of drift off and think about it,” Meyer says. “I’ve been out of football seven or eight months now. It’s unbelievable how fast time flies and how much you miss it. Because it’s such a big part of your life for so long. That one year that I had to play, it was unbelievable.
“Every night I walk into my room and I see an action photo that was taken of me, and I’ve got my diploma. I look at those two things every night, and I just get goose bumps every time I see them.”
