Great, just what we needed — the next coming of Martin Gramatica.

Next thing you know, Nebraska freshman kicker Adi Kunalic is going to jump so high celebrating his next 80-yard kick through end zone that he’ll wind up tearing his …

Uh, never mind that thought. Never would I wish that on any one. Especially not on a kicker who in his debut became a Memorial Stadium fan favorite.

The only thing Kunalic (kan-al-ick) was missing during the Huskers’ season-opening 52-10 rout of Nevada was a name like Gramatica. Then we’d be able to start calling him “Automatica.”

Or, if he was from Australia, he could be the next “Thunder from Down Under.”

Alas, the kid was born in Bosnia. But, hey, he did come to NU from Fort Worth, Texas — right? That’s far enough South for me.

Anyway, about that fan-favorite tag? That’s no joke, folks.

You would have had to have been in a sound-proof setting (which is kind of what sitting in the press box is like) to not know that Adi got the stadium rowdy by sending his kickoff following Nebraska’s second score of the season bouncing off the North end zone wall.

The roar included a standing O and chants of “Ah-Di, Ah-Di, Ah-Di.”

“It’s a good name to be chanted,” Kunalic said later. “I had it in my high school like that.”

What? For kicking a ball through the end zone.

“I guess it’s a hard thing to do,” Kunalic explained. “I’m happy I can do it.”

So, too, are the legion of fans who a year ago were mostly groaning about kickoffs by Jordan Congdon that usually failed to go through the end zone, or at least deep enough to keep a return man in his safety zone.

On Saturday, Kunalic boomed six of his nine kickoffs for touchbacks, and then taunted the NCAA for not moving the kickoff point back farther than the 30.

OK, so kickers don’t taunt. But if they could …

“How about Adi today?” said quarterback Sam Keller, who figured to be the one who would exit this sun-drenched afternoon as the new fav of the Husker faithful. “It was beautiful to see him succeed. It adds a huge dimension for us on special teams and field position, so I’m very excited.”

Maybe even more than Kunalic, who, after being asked how it felt to be a fan favorite, responded: “What’s a fan favorite?”

No one could make that up, just like Kunalic didn’t try to deny he heard the crowd singing his praises.

“Definitely excited, (but) I was trying to keep my head in the game,” he said. “But I love the fans here. It’s going to be fun.”

Prior to Saturday, Kunalic said the largest crowd he’d ever performed in front of was in the neighborhood of 3,000.

So what’s another 81,000, or so?

OK, so into a slight wind, Kunalic’s first kickoff only reached the Wolf Pack 10-yard line. Not to worry.

“You’ve got to have one bad one to start it off, I guess,” he said. “I hit it pretty good, but I guess it got stuck in the wind up there and dropped down.”

His next effort, though, left no doubt whether the Huskers would be thinking about trying a pooch kick if they had to kick into the wind again.

Pooch kick? One might as well spit in Kunalic’s face before they ask him to execute one of those.

“I wouldn’t want to do that,” he said. “Like, ‘Why not put it back — you know? I guess if you put it really high and try to pin them in, but the thing is, kicking it out of the end zone is just a for-sure 20.”

OK, Texas Big Time. Let’s say you and your kicking buddies are goofing around in practice one day, trying to see who’s got the super- baddest toe of all. How’s that one going to work out?

“On Thursday, we did a little safety kickoff, from the 20, and I put that one on the goal line,” Kunalic said.

On the goal line?

“And we were kicking toward  the south, so I was kicking into a little wind. That was a pretty good hit on the ball.”

And a pretty sure sign that should the Huskers get sacked with a safety that punter Dan Titchener needn’t worry about the free kick part of that deal.

This just in, too. If Kunalek keeps knocking 46-yarders through the uprights like he did during the third quarter Saturday, Alex Henery better focus on PATs and short field goals.

It’s a great problem for the Huskers to have. Now, if only they can get this guy a nickname and make sure he doesn’t try to pull a Gramatica.

“I don’t know,” Kunalic said. “I’m just happy to be healthy and do as good as I did today.”

Reach Curt McKeever at 473-7441 or cmckeever@journalstar.com.