Music Man by Samuel McKewon

It's Thursday night, and the busiest guy on the Nebraska football team is cornerback Anthony Blue.

He's got around 50 iPods in front of him – each from a different Cornhusker player. They've entrusted Blue with a key part of their gameday ritual: The music playlist.

By Friday, when the team either departs for the airport or heads to the local team hotel, Blue has uploaded a personal mix for each from his vast library of tunes, which he's sure is the largest on the team.

Blue, a sophomore art major, wants to do it. Along with loving “all forms of art” - especially music and drawing - he grew up a computer whiz in graphic design, although he's considering switching his emphasis – perhaps to advertising – for “what I'm going to do for a career.”

“I was telling (cornerback) Dejon Gomes that everybody on the team can play basketball,” Blue said. “I could probably fix someone's computer. Just growing up around computers, it came along with it.”

Whereas kids of a certain age used to clip player photos out of magazines and paste them on the wall, Blue liked to design text and graphics around photos on the computer. Along the way, he picked up music, and now routinely keeps a mix of the newest songs in just about every genre.

Other than Blue himself, sophomore receiver Curenski Gilleylen, Blue said, has the biggest, most varied playlist.

“Everything,” Blue said. “Country, R&B, neo-soul, gospel. His tastes are wide.”

Blue has physically recovered from a devastating knee injury that kept him out last season. He returned to special teams units in the Missouri game, and was on the field for a blitz call in Saturday's game vs. Oklahoma.

“The progress has been huge,” Blue said. “I feel great on deep ball. I still need more work on short routes. Slants. Stops.”

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