ESPN College Football

Georgia (11-2, 7-1 SEC) vs. Nebraska (10-3, 7-1 Big Ten)

Who to watch: Considering that the two defenses in the Capital One Bowl rank 95th (Nebraska at 194.9 rushing yards allowed per game) and 77th (Georgia, 177.8 ypg) against the run, we recommend that you keep an eye on the respective teams’ running threats.

The run is particularly important for Nebraska, which ranks eighth nationally in rushing offense at 254.5 yards per game. Quarterback Taylor Martinez (175 attempts, 973 yards, 10 TDs) and running backs Ameer Abdullah (219-1,089, 8 TDs) and Rex Burkhead (74-535, 4 TDs) present a major threat for a Bulldogs defense that has surrendered 300-plus rushing yards in three straight games.

Georgia’s offense is more balanced than Nebraska’s -- the Bulldogs average 274.2 passing yards and 184.2 rushing yards per game -- but offensive coordinator Mike Bobo will no doubt try to set up his passing game with his dynamite one-two punch of freshman tailbacks, Todd Gurley (199-1,260, 16 TDs) and Keith Marshall (109-723, 8 TDs). Marshall has two touchdown runs of 70-plus yards this season, providing the home run threat out of the backfield that the Bulldogs have lacked for several years.

What to Watch: Georgia’s defensive front against Nebraska’s offensive line. The Cornhuskers have a pair of All-Big Ten offensive linemen in guard Spencer Long and tackle Jeremiah Sirles, but center Justin Jackson is out with an injured ankle. Their backup center, either Mark Pelini or Cole Pensick, will not have to go up against Georgia’s senior All-SEC noseguard, John Jenkins, who will miss the game after being declared academically ineligible last week. But they’ll hardly get much of a break in having to block 6-foot-6, 355-pound nose Kwame Geathers, who will replace Jenkins in the starting lineup.

Nonetheless, after getting shredded by Alabama’s powerful running game, Georgia’s defensive line will be subject to close observation against Nebraska’s talented runners.

Why watch? The Capital One Bowl is traditionally one of the highest-profile non-BCS bowl games, and this one fits the bill. No. 7 Georgia came within 5 yards of upsetting Alabama and playing for the BCS title. No. 16 Nebraska could have played in the Rose Bowl before laying an egg against Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game.

Surprisingly enough, though, these teams have played only once before despite their positions as two of the winningest programs in college football history. Nebraska’s 45-6 win over the Bulldogs in the 1969 Sun Bowl still ranks as the worst bowl loss in Georgia history.

Prediction: Nebraska is going to score, but can it score enough to keep up with Georgia? The Cornhuskers have played six games against teams that rank in the nation’s top 50 in scoring offense. They went 3-3 in those games and allowed an average of 39.5 points per game. And here’s the kicker: Georgia boasts the highest-scoring offense Nebraska has faced this season, as the Bulldogs rank 19th nationally in scoring at 37.2 points per game. Georgia 38, Nebraska 24.

Bo Pelini's message to his team after an Oct. 6 loss at Ohio State won't conjure up images of Knute Rockne. His speech likely won't be mounted on the stadium wall, as Tim Tebow's 2008 post-defeat promise was at Florida.

Yet if Nebraska is able to finish this season out as expected, Pelini's words could be remembered for a long time by Huskers fans.

Things looked anything but promising for his team after Ohio State blew the doors off Big Red in a 63-38 humiliation. A Big Ten title probably seemed like a pipe dream that night.

But Pelini, a guy who constantly talks about "the process" and doesn't like to discuss big picture items during the season, offered his team a rare long view that night in the locker room at Ohio Stadium.

"He told us, 'Everything we want is still out there to take,'" offensive tackle Jeremiah Sirles told ESPN.com. "He said, 'I know this game hurt, and it should hurt because you got embarrassed. But all we have to do is win out, and we'll control our own destiny.'"

"He told us, 'Usually I'll come in here and say our goals are still out there and we've just got to improve,'" tight end Ben Cotton told ESPN.com. "But he laid it out flat for us. He was honest. It was kind of a, look-you-in-the-eyes-straight, man-to-man statement. He was making it clear to everybody what we had to do if we wanted to win a Big Ten championship."

Pelini repeated his "win-out" mantra a few minutes later when meeting the media, saying: "We have six weeks, and we need to win the next six football games." That seemed a lofty goal at the time, as Nebraska still had to go to Northwestern and Michigan State and play Michigan and Penn State at home, and especially in the moments after the defense got shredded like never before under Pelini.

Winning out meant first getting better, and that began the next week during the team's bye week practices. Pelini didn't make a lot of changes. He just asked the team to work harder and correct mistakes.

"That's what you try to do, and we have stayed the course," he said Monday. "We didn't panic, and I think our kids have gotten better."

That didn't mean things came easy. In their first game after Ohio State, the Huskers trailed by 12 points in the fourth quarter at Northwestern and had to score twice in the final 5:55 to pull out a 29-28 victory. They also had to rally from double digit deficits in the second half to beat Michigan State and Penn State.

But somewhere along the way, this team developed a confidence in its ability to win under difficult conditions.

"We're confident that we're capable of doing the impossible until the final whistle at the end of the game," Cotton said.

The offensive production has been there all season. The defense has steadily improved since that Ohio State disaster, culminating in the starters leaving last week's game against Minnesota without allowing a point in the eventual 38-14 win. Nebraska now ranks No. 19 nationally in total defense.

"We knew we were a better team than what we showed against Ohio State," linebacker Will Compton told reporters this week. "It just sucked having to hear about how bad we did. ... We knew we could take care of ourselves, and we knew we were a good football team when we are clicking on all cylinders."

The Huskers played their most complete game of the season last week, as the offense finally started fast and limited its turnovers and other mistakes. Now the team needs one more solid effort this week at reeling Iowa, and it will clinch the Legends Division title and head to the Big Ten championship game.

And that would mean the Huskers went 6-0 in the second half of the season, fulfilling Pelini's "win-out" motto. If they bring the first conference championship back to Lincoln since 1999, those words could become part of the program's lore.

"It was a big turning point," Sirles said. "There was no looking back after that. It was move forward, guns ho, foot on the gas pedal, let's get after it."