You might not think it, but sometimes the “gut check” comes on a 75-degree day when the sky hasn’t a cloud and your team is winning.It was that kind of day in Waco, Texas, when Nebraska played the Baylor Bears last Halloween. Curenski Gilleylen was there. So were plenty of family and friends. After all, it’s a little more than an hour’s drive on I-35 to get to Waco from Gilleylen’s hometown of Leander, Texas.
The Husker wide receiver had been looking forward to that game.
Then it arrived.
“I didn’t play a down,” Gilleylen said. “I had to realize then that this was for real and I had to step my game up.”
Gilleylen calls it a “gut check,” an “eye-opening experience.” Pick your description. Just don’t call it fun.
Then again, if the lessons of 2009 turn out to be a launching pad for the 6-foot, 215-pound junior, it will prove a season of great use.
“I definitely took it as I can’t take anything for granted,” Gilleylen said. “No matter what it is, whether I have a great couple of games at the beginning, I think I kind of got comfortable at the beginning. I can’t get complacent. I’ve got to strive to get better, and that’s what I’ve got to do every time I step foot on the field.”
-From the LJS
