Someone needed to pick up the new guy at the airport.

Bo Pelini’s plane was landing and he was going to need a ride.

Bob Stoops looked over at the graduate assistant. The guy looked like he’d make a capable chauffeur.

And so Mike Ekeler jumped in his vehicle and picked up the man who not many days earlier had been passed over to become Nebraska head football coach.

“It is what it is,” as Pelini might say, a trip to and from the airport. But still Ekeler remembers it fondly. He’s been riding with Pelini ever since.

Right after Pelini arrived to take over as Oklahoma’s co-defensive coordinator, the Sooner coaching staff went to Dallas to meet with the Cowboys’ staff for about five days.

It is actually in Dallas where Ekeler began to gain his appreciation for Pelini.

“He didn’t come to one meeting,” Ekeler says. “He stayed outside the meeting room and was on the phone talking to GMs/player personnel, all these people in the (NFL) for all these guys back at Nebraska, guys who played their tails off for him, who would never do anything else for him again. And I thought, ‘You know what? This guy gets it. This guy totally gets it.’”

Ekeler began to study the details of Pelini’s defense. And when Pelini   left for LSU after a year, Ekeler came along and kept the learning process going.

Already working in Baton Rouge, La., was a young coach not too far removed from his college days. John Papuchis was an up-and-comer in the profession and Pelini sensed it from the beginning.

Ekeler, Papuchis … Pelini put them on his mental list. They’d make good hires.

That first year together, Pelini would occasionally ask Papuchis: What if someone came and evaluated your coaching ability on how you performed that day?

Papuchis still falls back on that thought, admitting he “probably annoyed” Pelini with how many questions he asked that year.

By 2006, Pelini told Papuchis he’d be interested in taking him with him if he ever got a head coaching job.

And so you can imagine his satisfaction on Dec. 2, 2007, the day Nebraska named Pelini to guide the football program.

“Rising stars in the business” is what Pelini called Ekeler and Papuchis a month ago when naming them as full-time Nebraska defensive assistants. Good work if you can get it. At LSU, Papuchis carried the title of defensive intern. Ekeler was an assistant strength coach.

A tough professional leap?

Nope, Ekeler says. The two have been building for this moment.

“He kind of brought us along, kind of mentored, and kind of developed us, I guess you could say,” says Ekeler, in charge of the Husker linebackers.

“And that’s what gives us a tremendous advantage going in here, because when Bo got to LSU,  he had to really teach all the assistant coaches. And being with him five years and understanding the system inside-out, front and back, now we’re going to hit the ground running. There’s no learning curve when it comes to the coaching staff.”

Adds Ekeler: “We could start spring ball today and we’d all be on the same page.”

The last month has been a whirlwind for both Papuchis and Ekeler, who took on their duties at Nebraska while still helping LSU prepare for its national title game against Ohio State.

Three days after LSU’s 38-24 win against the Buckeyes, Ekeler admitted: “I’m just kind of running on adrenaline. After the game, I don’t know if I’ve been to bed.”

Ekeler is 36, a native of Blair, and once coached at Omaha Skutt. He played linebacker at Kansas State.

He calls it “a dream come true to come back here and be able to be a part of restoring the tradition and the pride.”

Papuchis is 29, a Maryland native and a Virginia Tech grad in 2001. Of more important matters, his wife is expecting their first child.

Papuchis, who will coach the defensive ends, smiles when asked about his age.

“I was honored and extremely excited about (being hired),” he says. “But the age thing never came into my mind I think as much as some other people have paid attention to it.”

He’s in good company anyway. Tom Osborne was 27 when he became as a part-time assistant for Bob Devaney. He was 30 when he became a full-time assistant.

Papuchis hasn’t looked much at tapes of last year’s 5-7 debacle of a Husker season.

“I’m kind of looking at it like everyone is coming in with a fresh slate,” he says. “I don’t really want to have many pre-judgments on the guys.”

And so the focus now is on recruiting. National signing day is coming fast, Feb. 6.

Coming off a bad season and a change in coaching staff, Nebraska was hit with a rash of decommitments in December.

It alarmed some, but not the new guys.

“With the coaching staff change, that’s going to happen no matter who came in as the head coach,” Papuchis says. “We wanted guys who are excited to be in our program. If someone doesn’t want to be in it, more power to them. They can move on and we’ll move on, too.”

Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7439 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.