Ndamukong Suh May Be Nebraska's Best Defensive Lineman -- Ever

It's one thing to be mentioned in the same breath as some of the Nebraska Cornhuskers' great defensive linemen of the past.

Grant Wistrom. Rich Glover. Larry Jacobson. Neil Smith. Danny Noona. Kenny Walker. Jason Peter.

It's another thing altogether to leapfrog your name ahead of all of them. Yet that's position senior defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh finds himself in going into his final season in Lincoln.

Could he be? Will he be?

For now, that's a question left unresolved, and, if were up to Suh, would remain unanswered.

"It's a compliment but it seems very far-fetched for me," Suh said to FanHouse this week. "I don't really see me being one of the best that has played here. Hopefully, I'm among the best, but I don't know. That's a lot of weight on my shoulders for me to have that said about me. That's fine with me, I definitely want to live up to that expectation."

Suh, 6-foot-4 and 300 pounds, certainly made a strong case last season. He was the embodiment of power and agility along the interior of the Cornhuskers defensive line, putting together one of the most impressive seasons in a long time in Lincoln.

Suh clogged the middle, ran down ball carriers all over the field and served as a constant menace to opposing quarterbacks. He might not have been the sole reason for the Nebraska Cornhuskers resurgence on the side of the ball that had defined Nebraska football for decades but he was definitely the catalyst.

"Big Suh is a tremendous football player," said second-year Nebraska coach Bo Pelini. "He's very big, very powerful, extremely athletic and smart.

"He has all the tools to be a tremendous player. He's become a tremendous player."

Almost anyone Suh lined up against last season would agree. The Portland, Ore., native dominated the line of scrimmage and helped the Cornhuskers defense recoup its Blackshirt alter ego.

Suh's 76 tackles led Nebraska's defense, a feat all but unheard of for an interior defensive lineman in modern football. In fact, the last time a defensive lineman had led the Cornhuskers in tackles prior to last season was in 1973.

But more importantly than his personal accomplishments, which also included a pair of interceptions for touchdowns, Suh is most fixated on the vast improvement made by the entire defense last season. The Cornhuskers went from 116th to 21st nationally in rushing defense and they were second in the Big 12 in total defense at 349.8 yards per game allowed, 126 yards better than the disastrous 2007 season.

Suh hopes last season serves as a notice of what's to come.

"It was huge," said Suh, who has 33 career tackles-for-loss and 12 career sacks. "We're still in the process of getting back. Obviously our ultimate goal is being a Blackshirt defense and holding teams to no scores and field goals and stuff like that when we get into playing teams in conference.

"It was a huge step for us to get our problems taken care of and start to turn that corner last year. So now we can just pick up right where we left off."

All of that optimism might not be there going into this season had Suh decided to capitalize on his monster junior season after two so-so years. Suh could have been a first-day NFL draft pick this past April, but he opted to return to school for his fifth-year senior season.

Suh said he wanted to help the Cornhuskers complete its return to prominence, and he also wanted to earn his construction management degree, which he will in December after completing 10 credit hours this fall.

He will also probably be able to take a lot of hardware with him to the next level if his preseason award list is any indicator. Suh is a preseason candidate for the Lombardi Award, Outland Trophy, Nagurski Award and Lott Trophy along with preseason first team All-Big 12 and All-American honors.

"My biggest motivation in coming back is I felt this team had unfinished business," said Suh, who was voted by the Big 12 coaches as just a second-team all conference member following last season. "I think our seniors last year left this program with a great legacy being that class that turned it around. I kind of want this team to leave that stamp of a higher note of getting back to a BCS bowl or possibly a national championship this year.

"The reason I came back is I felt that the people we have on this team right now are a collection of guys who could possibly do that as long as we put in the work and time and come together as a team. That's pretty much everybody's goal in all the big conference, but I just felt like I can be another small piece of what can move this program back into the promise land as it was before."

But Suh also understands there are some risks involved with coming back to school. If all goes well, he could be the first defensive tackle taken in the first round of next year's NFL Draft. There is also the chance for injury that could reduce his stock.

Suh has heard it all.

"There are two sides to every story and I can see both sides," he said. "But for me, ultimately it was what was best suited for me and my family. I felt I could come back here and have another great year and hopefully that opportunity of going to the next level will still be there as long as I take care of business on the field."

Pelini certainly believes Suh made the right decision.

"At the end of the day, I think he realized that he could use another year of college. Most kids can," said Pelini, whose team enters as the preseason favorite to win the Big 12 North. "He also just felt like he had unfinished business. He felt that he wanted to be instrumental in where the program is headed and he wants to finish off his career at Nebraska the right way."

For Suh that would be winning the Big 12 North and overall Big 12 championship and having a chance to play for Nebraska's first national title in more than a decade. But it's almost just important to him to help return to the Blackshirt mystic to the Nebraska defense that the players before him helped establish.

Only then might he be comfortable with the comparisons to the Nebraska greats.