"Old friends, playbook-ends"

National championships and nine-win seasons are a lot easier to come by when you're donning the red and white of tradition-rich Nebraska. For Buffalo football head coach Turner Gill and Ohio football head coach Frank Solich, success became a habit at the perennial Big XII powerhouse school.

In December of 2004, Solich, one year removed from his final season as head coach of Nebraska, accepted his current position at Ohio University.

Gill, a player for Solich at Nebraska and assistant coach during Solich's stint as head coach, followed suit. Gill took his BCS conference background to Buffalo, a struggling Mid-American Conference school.

The two coaches have a strong friendship that dates back to the days when Gill took snaps under center as Nebraska's quarterback for legendary head coach Tom Osborne. Solich was an assistant on that staff and their relationship continued when Gill became an assistant under Osborne and eventually Solich as well.

"I appreciate what Turner is all about," Solich said at a press conference. "He was an excellent player at Nebraska. We were on the staff with Coach (Tom) Osborne together, and he was on my staff. So I've gotten to know him as a student-athlete and a coach. He's a great person. Our friendship is built on a very strong base, so it will certainly continue long after this game, and long after our time coaching here in the MAC."

Now, for the first time in either of their college careers, either playing or coaching, the two longtime Huskers will meet head-to-head as their two teams, the Ohio Bobcats and Buffalo Bulls, respectively, meet Saturday afternoon.

If either coach had their way though, it would be just another game, between two schools attempting to execute their game plans.

"I think we're so tuned into wanting to keep getting better, taking games one game, trying to improve and getting ourselves a winning streak going, that any of the periphery that surrounds this game is taking a back seat," Solich said.

The cornhusk doesn't fall far from the stalk.

"We're not going to treat anything any differently," Gill said. "A game is a game. No matter who the head coaches are, it's about where they line up and what they're trying to do scheme wise."

Lining up on the field and being successful has become a problem for Gill's Bulls this year. The team, and program, is in the beginning stages of a rebuilding process that will take longer than the six games Buffalo has played. Struggling at 1-5, the Bulls are a stark contrast to Ohio's 4-3. The Bobcats have already matched their win total from last year and are coming off a win over Big 10 school Illinois.

With the programs in different stages of development, the similar approach to the game is where the parallel ends.

"They (Ohio) have been a Division I school longer than we have," Gill said. "There's a little difference in me coming into this situation and what he (Solich) was coming into at Ohio. I know that OU has not had a lot of success so that may be a little similarity but we've only been in Division 1 for six or seven years so still not quite the same."

Gill's former coach, however, believes that the situation is fit for the ex-Husker quarterback.

"It's a building situation and certainly there's not a lot of pressure immediately," Solich said. "I think most reasonable people wouldn't expect them to come out and go undefeated. Getting a chance to rebuild a program can be special, and I think it's a great opportunity for a coach."

The process will take hard work and dedication, something Gill cites as having learned from his former coach.

"Just hard work is what I learned from him," Gill said. "He's diligent, detailed in what he's trying to get done as a coach."

Gill and Solich do differ in their personal approach, sporting a "different personality," according to Gill.

"He's an intense guy," Gill said. "I'm a little more even-keeled, he's more intense."

Regardless of personality type or coaching beliefs, the two have spent the week preparing for an in-conference showdown, rather than re-hashing their friendship through the media and personally.

"I really don't have any conversation with them leading up to the game," Solich said. "That friendship has been there in the past. It will continue to be there when this game is in the books, but you can't dwell on the fact that there are good friendships there and build anything more into it."

The next time the two will speak will be sometime Saturday afternoon, with only one being victorious.