As Dan Van De Riet prepared to go to bed on Saturday night in a hotel in California, his television flashed back at him pictures of the local fire chief reporting from Calabasas High School, where a command station had been set up.
Wildfires had hit the area. More than 500 acres had been scorched. People were being evacuated from their homes. Far less important, yet of matter to the entire Husker staff that had made the trip out west, was that a football camp the following Sunday morning at Calabasas High now seemed unlikely.
"I was like, 'Ahhhh, it's going to get interesting in the morning,'" said Van De Riet, Nebraska's associate athletic director for football operations.