AUSTIN, Texas — Mack Brown is a professor of football history at Texas. Not really, but he ought to be.

Brown’s attentive students this week included not only the members of his national champion Texas football team and staff, but also burnt orange-wearing Bevo backers everywhere.

With fifth-ranked Texas headed to No. 16 Nebraska on Saturday for a clash of traditional football powers, Brown has spent the last few days lecturing on the significance of this game and praising everything about Nebraska, except possibly the forecast of a chilly rain at the 11 a.m. kickoff.

But, really, with Nebraska seven years removed from its last Big 12 title, and the Longhorns more accustomed to feuding with Oklahoma and Texas A&M than their on-again, off-again series with NU, should this be considered a big game?

“For the University of Texas?” asked Duane Akina, the Longhorns’ co-defensive coordinator. “Oh, my goodness, certainly.

“Anytime you have a chance to line up against Nebraska … that’s college football right there.”

That was the consensus of those in line waiting for free samples at Krispy Kreme and others wandering past the famed UT tower.

In a city of nearly 1.3 million people and on a campus with nearly 50,000 students, anyone you talked to seemed prepared to quote Brown.

Even two visiting students from Germany said they were eager to watch Saturday’s game on TV.

“I’d love it to be where every year, we go in asking where the game with Nebraska is going to be,” said Trey McLean of the Texas Exes, the alumni group that will hold its tailgate party at the Embassy Suites prior to Saturday’s showdown.

“The traveling fans love going to Nebraska and playing Nebraska,” McLean said. “We want y’all to be good.”

While Husker fans and observers across the country may say Nebraska’s recent down cycle — no Big 12 championships since 1999 — has taken some of the luster from the renewal of the series, Texans don’t seem to be buying it.

All Akina remembers is Texas’ last trip to Lincoln, back in 2002, when “the chalk was flying on our sideline” and the Longhorns pulled out a late 27-24 win against an NU squad that finished 7-7.

Senior running back Selvin Young played at Nebraska in 2002.

“I remember it vividly,” Young said. “They have a lot of history around their team, and Coach does a good job of helping us understand that history.

“We understand that people don’t go up there and come out with victories too often.”

Young remembers the feeling walking out of Memorial Stadium and hearing the cheers of Husker  fans, “true fans,” as he called them.

This season, Texas is promoting sportsmanship at its games through “Make Us Proud.” Nebraska fans were the model, McLean said.

“I’ve never met anybody that went up to Nebraska and didn’t have a good time,” said McLean, who is heading out on Friday morning. “We want to be like you guys are.”

Reach Todd Henrichs at 473-7439 or thenrichs@journalstar.com.