Nebraska Football Notebook

Practice report

LINCOLN -- The effort and intensity of the Nebraska football team remains strong after the Huskers completed the fourth practice of fall camp Thursday on the Ed and Joyanne Gass practice fields northeast of Memorial Stadium.

"I like the attitude and the work," coach Bo Pelini said. "As you get a couple days in, you hope guys don't start feeling sorry for themselves.  I'm sure they are a little bit, but you don't see that out on the field. They're running, they're hustling and I like where they are right now."

Despite not being able to practice in full pads due to NCAA rules, Nebraska continues to build the team's physicality. The Huskers worked out in shorts and shoulder pads.

"It really doesn't change how you go about things," Pelini said. "We want to be physical no matter what."

As the Huskers ramp up the contact in practice, defensive tackle Ty Steinkuhler, who has missed the last two practices due to injury, is nearing his return to the field.

"He probably could've practiced today," Pelini said. "We don't want to rush him back too quick."

Nebraska returns to the practice field Friday for a 3:45 p.m. workout. The Huskers will conduct their first of six two-a-day sessions on Saturday.

Peterson's press

Nebraska senior wide receiver Todd Peterson said he hasn't received much feedback on his first foray into the world of journalism. Last month, Peterson wrote the first in a series of first-person columns for The Sporting News Today.

"I haven't gotten any constructive criticism on the writing or anything, but I've had friends and family tell me they enjoyed it and things like that," said Peterson, a Grand Island Central Catholic graduate. "I've got a writer that helps me write a lot of it. He's doing a lot of the work for me, so don't make it look like I'm a sports columnist just yet."

Peterson said the plan is that he'll have a story published every couple of weeks during the course of the season. TSN Today -- a new online publication produced by The Sporting News -- features daily submissions from college football players across the country.

"It's fun," Peterson said. "It's just kind of cool experience to be able to do the same thing that a lot of great players across the country have been picked to do, so I look at it as an honor."

Unnoticed injury

Despite his drop in statistical production over the last half of the 2007 season, Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh said the knee injury he suffered midway through the year didn't affect his play much.

"Actually, I really didn't even notice it," said Suh, a 6-foot-4, 300-pound junior from Portland, Ore. "It happened in the first Big 12 game against Iowa State. I was just sore after that game, and I couldn't walk after that game for a little bit, but I went into treatment on Sunday and Monday, and came back to practice and everything was fine."

Through the first five games of last season, Suh had 19 tackles, including six tackles for loss. After the Iowa State contest, he had 15 tackles, none for loss, in Nebraska's final seven games.

Still, Suh didn't have any trouble with his knee until winter conditioning.

"One day I heard a pop," Suh said of his knee, which required surgery in early March. "That's where it went."



--Staff and wire reports