You often experience the phenomenon in college football stadiums.

As the home team gathers momentum, the partisan crowd’s roar, energy and collective jostling begin to literally shake the stadium. Standing on the field, it almost seems as if the earth is shifting under your feet. The visiting team suddenly must somehow turn back a tidal wave of emotion. 

That tidal wave has engulfed Nebraska more often than not in recent years.

“We’re trying to get over the hump and put together some more road victories,” said Nebraska second-year head coach Bill Callahan. “It starts with the right mentality. A road mentality. It’s mental toughness.”

Nebraska enters today’s game at Kansas having won only one of its last six Big 12 Conference road games. The Huskers have a 1-1 league road record this year after going 0-4 last season. Four of the five defeats were by at least 17 points.

One might trace the start of Nebraska’s struggle in true road games to a 62-36 loss at Colorado to end the 2001 regular season. Since the start of the 2002 season, the Huskers are 6-11 in all road games, which ranks seventh among Big 12 teams during that period. Texas leads the way with a 16-1 record, and Oklahoma is next at 12-3.

Before the debilitating loss to Colorado in November of 2001, Nebraska had compiled a 12-5 road record since the start of Frank Solich’s tenure as head coach in 1998.

The Huskers, currently 5-3 overall and 2-3 in the Big 12, look to reverse their road fortunes today against a Jayhawk team that leans heavily on its stingy defense. Most people envision a close game, one that likely will feature plenty of momentum shifts and may not be decided until well into the fourth quarter.

“The pendulum swings all day in football,” Callahan said. “I’ll tell you, ‘old mo’ is going to go back and forth. It’s important to try to capture it but also understand there are going to be different swings during the course of the game.”

Nebraska quarterback Zac Taylor emphasized the importance of resiliency in road games.

“When you’re on the road, you’re going to face adversity in one way or another,” he said. “Things aren’t going to go your way. The crowd’s going to go against you. The biggest thing is when a team scores on you to be able to counter immediately and take the crowd out of the game.”

In Nebraska’s 23-14 win Oct. 15 at Baylor, the Bears opened the game with a long touchdown drive, but the Huskers countered with a scoring drive of their own. The following week, in Nebraska’s 41-24 loss at Missouri, the Tigers jumped to a 21-3 lead before the Huskers rallied to tie the game at halftime.

“It’s important you don’t overreact,” Callahan said. “I believe our kids have been resilient this year because they haven’t overreacted. They’ve been down, they’ve been through a lot. They know how to bounce back and understand the mentality you have to have to bounce back.”

What makes a good road team? Start with talented and experienced players and then focus on limiting penalties and mental errors, said Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops.

Overall team unity, chemistry, confidence, maturity and good leadership also are critical elements, said Iowa State head coach Dan McCarney.

Achieving a collective focus throughout your team amid the din of an opponent’s stadium is the hardest part, according to Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach.

Because of the nature of his position, Taylor feels extra responsibility to maintain equanimity amid the madness.

“I’m responsible for keeping everyone composed in the huddle,” he said. “The crowd will be loud, and it can get to you. I have to make sure I speak up in the huddle and make sure communication is going well. That’s my main responsibility, to make sure everyone can communicate in the huddle.”

Callahan said a head coach’s demeanor also can help matters.

“I’m a pretty steady guy,” he said. “I really try to maintain a demeanor where I don’t get too high and I don’t get too low. I just keep a consistency to how I approach the game, so the players can draw confidence from that.

“It’s a matter of execution under pressure.”

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On the road, players move out of their comfort zone.

What seem to be minor adjustments can mount and become a factor. It might involve drastically different weather conditions. Or a playing field that’s sloped differently than the home field. Or a locker room that’s not nearly as plush as at home.

That’s why Callahan takes his  team to the opponent’s stadium the day before a game, so players can visualize what it’ll be like when the curtain goes up.

Leach tries to make his team’s routine on the road as similar as possible to preparation for a home game.

Occasionally, though, a glitch in the process waylays a team. It happened to Nebraska in September of 2002 as it prepared to leave Lincoln for a game at Penn State. Because a charter flight was delayed, the Huskers departed much later than scheduled on Friday and missed their Friday night walk-through practice at Beaver Stadium. In fact, the Husker travel party didn’t arrive at their destination until about 11 p.m. Travel problems the next day delayed NU’s bus to the stadium.

Was the altered travel schedule a factor in Nebraska’s 40-7 loss before a crowd of 110,753? Maybe not. But it didn’t help matters. Nor did the fact quarterback Jammal Lord made his first career start in a road game. He threw three interceptions.

“For the most part, the more experience you have, the better,” Callahan said. “I believe the younger guys learn from the older players and draw strength from them.”

Callahan frequently puts his team in pressure situations in practice to prepare them for intense road conditions. For instance, Callahan turns up the intensity with drills that match the first-string offense and defense. He said goal-line scrimmages become particularly heated.

“You try to create winners and losers based on those situations,” he said.

There’s a unifying element to rounding up the troops for a road game, Callahan said.

“It’s an opportunity to band together and fight as a team.”

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Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder agreed with Callahan that mental toughness may be the most important ingredient in winning on the road.

“I think it boils down to individual mental discipline that young people have or that you can create,” Snyder said. “It’s all about being able to put the game between the white lines and keep it there. Obviously, there’s a noise factor that discipline and focus don’t totally disband. So you have to have a system that allows you to communicate well with your offense.”

Added Leach, “You try to ignore the noise, really. Everything you do can be done non-verbally — not just with our offense, but with about everybody else’s.”

At times, crucial game-management decisions can help put a team over the top on the road. For instance, Oklahoma’s decision to kick off to open the game last week against Nebraska paid immediate dividends. The Sooners forced the Huskers to go three plays-and-out, then OU scored on its first possession to silence the crowd.

“You don’t have many friends on the road,” Stoops said. “We felt that was a chance to get a friend on the road.”

Iowa State, meanwhile, also won a difficult road test last week, pounding Texas A&M 42-14 before 86,172 fans at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas. A&M home crowds are traditionally loud in part because upward of 20,000 students typically attend the games. George Bush Sr. also was on hand last week, McCarney said.

“But George Bush couldn’t come out and block and tackle our guys,” the coach said. “You’ve got to focus on your job and be as good as you can. I think the key is having maturity, and having good players, and having good chemistry and leadership — and just knowing there’s going to be adversity.

“The teams that handle that the best are going to come out on top.”

Reach Steven M. Sipple at 473-7440 or ssipple@journalstar.com.