Husker fans, clear your Saturday night. For the first time this season, Memorial Stadium gets the lights.

Nebraska and Bowling Green kick off at 6:00 p.m. Central, and Matt Rhule isn't hiding how he feels about it. "I think there's nothing quite like Memorial Stadium at night," he said Monday. He's right, and 87,000 people are about to remind him.

A friend on the other sideline

The storyline here is the man running Bowling Green: Eddie George, the 1995 Heisman Trophy winner from Ohio State.

Rhule remembers that season, from the other side of the field. He was at Penn State in 1995. "I have memories of standing on the sidelines watching Eddie George play," he said. "They had great, great, great teams."

Thirty years on, the two are close. One of Rhule's lifelong friends — a groomsman at his wedding — was George's strength coach at Tennessee State. And Rhule paid him the biggest compliment a coach can give another coach:

"He's a guy I'd want my son to play for. I know his son's playing for him. I'd let my son play for him. I think that much of him."

What Bowling Green brings

Don't mistake the friendship for an easy night. Rhule called the Falcons "a tough, tough, tough Eddie George-coached team" — a diverse run game, good blocking tight ends, and a pro-style offense built on outside zone, motion and play-action. "You better match their physicality and match their intensity," he said.

What Nebraska has to clean up

Nebraska beat Ohio 49-21, and the coaches have spent all week talking about what went wrong.

Penalties first. Nebraska was flagged nine times for 65 yards; Ohio, twice. "There is no excuse for that," Rhule said. "It can't happen."

Then the quarterback. Ohio's quarterback ran for 75 yards, more than half of Ohio's rushing total. Defensive coordinator Rob Aurich called it a discipline problem, not a talent one — and Rhule says Bowling Green's quarterback can move too.

The bottom line

Vegas has Nebraska by 29.5. A team that just scored 49 — with Jamal Rule running for 169 yards and three touchdowns in his debut — should handle this.

But the standard this staff is chasing isn't just winning. It's winning clean. Saturday night, under the lights, is the chance to show the penalties were a first-game problem and not a habit.

Husker Nation, get there early. The lights are coming on.