Nebraska quarterback Taylor eager to face former squad

? During his recruiting visit to Nebraska last December, an assistant coach told Zac Taylor that Wake Forest was on the Cornhuskers’ schedule this year.

“I was stunned. I thought he was messing with me at first,” Taylor said.

Not that Taylor has any ill will toward his old school. He said he just finds it weird that Nebraska is playing the Demon Deacons, of all teams, in his second game as a Cornhusker today in Lincoln.

“I never could have imagined a situation like this,” Taylor said.

“It’ll be a lot of fun. Everything will be put aside once the game starts, and then it’ll be just another game.”

Taylor, who transferred to Nebraska in January from Butler County Community College in Kansas, originally signed with Wake Forest in 2002 out of Norman (Okla.) High School.

Taylor appeared in only three games as a redshirt freshman in 2003, completing his only pass attempt for 3 yards in a 51-17 loss to Connecticut. He netted 9 yards on three rushing attempts that season, highlighted by a 15-yard run against Florida State.

Taylor said he left Wake Forest because he didn’t think he could beat out the two quarterbacks ahead of him – current starter Ben Mauk and backup Cory Randolph.

“Looking at the situation, I think I’ve improved a lot the last two years,” Taylor said. “The two years I was there they had some quarterbacks who were better than I was. I saw the writing on the wall.

“I just thought I’d find an opportunity playing somewhere else, so I decided to leave.”

It wasn’t as if Wake Forest wanted Taylor to go, coach Jim Grobe said.

Grobe said that by the end of the 2003 season, he would have been comfortable playing Taylor if that year’s starter, Randolph, had gone down.

“It wasn’t a situation where we thought Ben Mauk was the next guy and we wanted Zac to move on,” Grobe said. “We saw a lot of improvement in Zac and thought he could be a good quarterback for us. I think that’s exactly what happened. He went to junior college, matured and got stronger, and now he’s doing a nice job for Nebraska.”