Greatest Husker to wear 32: Ed Stewart, Linebacker, 1991-1994
Picture an inside linebacker from the 1960s, '70s or '80s.
The mental image in my head is a hulking beast of a man with a grass-stained uniform, athletic tape over his bleeding knuckles and a neckroll towering above oversized shoulder pads. Our prototypical linebacker isn't going to win a 100-meter dash, but when he hits you - and it is a "when," not an "if" - you'll feel it for days.
These are your Dick Butkus types. Guys like Mike Singletary, Jack Lambert and Ray Nitschke. The kind of guys whose highlights would be narrated by John Facenda of NFL Films.
That's not the type of linebacker Ed Stewart was, nor the football player he aspired to be.
Stewart came to Nebraska picturing himself as a defensive back. A safety like Ronnie Lott delivering punishment to receivers who dared to go across the middle. Nebraska's staff watched him in practice and could see his talent - a reliable, punishing tackler with a nose for the ball.
But there was one problem: He wasn't quite fast enough to get on the field in the defensive backfield.
In Nebraska's traditional 5-2 defense, a guy like Ed Stewart was destined to be a role player, or worse, buried on the depth chart. The coaching staff could see the potential in the Chicago native, but they knew his future wasn't at safety. As secondary coach George Darlington told Paul Koch in "Anatomy of an Era": "Here we have Ed Stewart sitting on his butt. And he’s a very good player, and we need to get him on the field."
Fortunately for Stewart's career, changes were brewing behind the scenes for the Blackshirts.
The coaches knew they needed more speed on the field. They also knew that their 5-2 was becoming ineffective against the offenses they were seeing - especially in bowl games. Moving from a 5-2 defense to a 4-3 would essentially trade a slow middle guard for a fast and athletic linebacker.
What if Ed Stewart was that linebacker? It was a lightbulb moment in the evolution of Charlie McBride's defensive transition. Instead of a skilled player who (according to coach Darlington) "didn’t have great foot speed compared to the secondary guys," Stewart became a new breed of linebacker - fast and athletic, but still able to lay a hit.
The move worked early and often. As a redshirt freshman in 1991, Stewart broke up a pass on Oklahoma's final play to preserve a 19-14 win. He had 11 tackles in the 1992 Orange Bowl. During the 1992 season, he was described in the media guide as "one of the most pleasant surprises on defense," earning honorable mention All-Big Eight recognition. Against Oklahoma, Stewart had a 50-yard interception return for a touchdown. Stewart's junior year (1993) was even better: Second on the team in tackles, and he accumulated sacks, tackles for loss, pass breakups, fumble recoveries and interceptions from sideline to sideline. He was a second-team All-Big Eight honoree.
In Ed Stewart's senior season (1994), he put together an excellent campaign. He was the defensive leader and a force on Tom Osborne’s first national championship team. All-Big Eight, Big Eight Defensive Player of the Year, consensus All-American, Defensive Player of the Year finalist by the Football Writers, and finalist for the Butkus Award as the nation's best linebacker.*
*Personally, I think Stewart was robbed of the Butkus Award. Dana Howard of Illinois? C’mon. If you ask me, they didn’t want to give the award to two Huskers in a row.
In the 1995 Orange Bowl, Stewart suffered a serious hamstring strain. But Nebraska's co-captain was not going to sit out. In the fourth quarter, Stewart came back on the field with his thigh wrapped in what looked like two rolls of athletic tape. Even though Stewart was running like a pirate with a peg leg, he made a critical tackle as the Blackshirts kept Miami from getting a single first down in the decisive quarter.
After leading Nebraska to the national championship, Ed Stewart has continued to be a leader throughout his professional career. He has been an associate athletic director at Missouri, the associate commissioner for football of the Big 12 Conference, and is currently the senior associate AD at Southern Cal. The last two times Nebraska's athletic director job has come open, Stewart has been a very popular candidate among the fan base.
