My walk-on story: Lane McCallum.
Year: Sophomore.
Hometown: Norfolk.
Depth chart: Not listed at safety or kicker.
Season stats: 3-for-3 on PATs against Northern Illinois.
Career games played: 1.
“I transferred here from Air Force (after being a backup kicker there). When coach (Scott) Frost came back I watched an interview of him saying that he knows there are guys is this state that aren’t here that should be here and I took that personally, and I think that my heart has always been here at Nebraska. The last coaching staff, I didn’t feel that love from them. Air Force was a great decision for me and I have no regrets, but I think my heart was always here and I wanted to make this program great.
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“I was just at Air Force my first year. It was definitely interesting. It’s not like regular college, that’s for sure. It’s a lot of structure and a lot of discipline. You wake up at 5 a.m. and don’t go to bed until 11 p.m., and you do it all over again and just listen to a lot of people teach you how to be better leaders, and also better followers.
“I would have had to sign a (military) commitment at the end of my sophomore year for the next eight or nine years. So that was definitely something that I had to think about, and I think I made the right choice coming back.
“The (coaches) asked me about (kicking) when (Barret Pickering) went down, and then that week after Dylan (Jorgensen) made his first start, I think they realized that Barret’s injury was a little more serious than they expected, so they asked me, ‘Hey, can you start kicking,’ and here I am I guess.
“In a game in high school I think I hit a (47-yard field goal). But I’ve never attempted anything longer than that in a game. In practice, I’ve hit in the 50s, I think. At Air Force I kicked in the mid-60s because the air is thinner, and once you add a little wind at your back with that thin air it's easy to let it fly.
“(Last week against Northern Illinois) was my first time ever going out on that field (to play in a game). It was awesome. I didn’t really have time to think about anything. We scored and (kicking coach Zach Crespo) yelled, ‘Lane, get out there, you’re going to kick this one.’ I was like, ‘OK.’ I sprinted out there and had no time to have any nerves and let it rip, I guess."
“(The defensive secondary players) wanted me out there. They knew that I was a kicker, and I kicked a little bit in the spring and they saw what I could do. Once things were kind of going south with Barrett a lot of the defensive players had my back and were like, ‘Hey, get Lane some tries.’ It was pretty cool.â€
-- Brent C. Wagner