They say Coach Callahan is a good recruiter. When it came to signing Maurice Purify, a wide receiver out of juco football factory, San Francisco City College, I think he’s a bit better than good.

photo courtesy of Dallas Morning News

Purify cleansed the program from untold pains this afternoon. His grab in the end zone to win the game with 20 seconds on the clock in College Station was freaking HUGE. Amazingly, it might not have been, had Purify not excercised patience while fighting to get into the lineup earlier this season.

Here’s what he had to say to his hometown paper, The Eureka Reporter, earlier this week:

On Sept. 16, when the Huskers played the University of Southern California, which featured Purify’s Logger teammate Rey Maualuga, Purify didn’t even play in the game.

Frustrated by the fact his mom was in attendance, Purify questioned his decision to play for Nebraska.

“If you would have asked me after USC, I probably would have said I wanted to transfer” Purify said. “I thought it was a special day for me since my mom was there, and I was angry about that. Then I just went and talked with (offensive coordinator Jay Norvell) and asked why I wasn’t playing. He told me (head coach Bill Callahan) didn’t want to put anybody on the field who didn’t know what they were doing. I told him I knew what I was doing, then they started throwing me in. Since then my role has been getting bigger and bigger, and now I’m starting.”

In the end, Purify admits the time spent becoming familiar with the program before being thrown into the fire might have helped him in the long run.

“I think it was good to make me wait, to make sure I knew what I was doing,” he said. “They didn’t want me in there before I was ready because they didn’t want me to lose confidence if things didn’t go well right away.”

Wide receiver Todd Peterson also played great today. He enjoyed his best game of the season with seven catches for 82 yards and a score. Five of Peterson’s second-half catches went for first downs.