An Alabama native, Barret Pickering had never before played a football game in snow.
On Saturday, the wind – or breeze, as Pickering innocently called it – gusted to 35 miles per hour out of the north on a gray, dreary 25-degree day at Memorial Stadium. Flurries began to fall in the second half of Nebraska’s football game against Michigan State, and by the time Pickering lined up for a 47-yard field goal attempt in the fourth quarter, with the score tied, snow had begun sticking to the turf.
Pickering, a true freshman, wiped himself a clear kicking spot and went about his business.