Who's the funniest guy on the Nebraska football team?

Sophomore linebacker Phillip Dillard pondered the weighty question. "I don't know," he said. "It's kind of hard to say because everyone always sees me as a jokester."

He thought about it. He didn't want to say himself.

Senior offensive lineman Jordan Picou is funny. OK, so Picou is the funniest.

Before he could make that his final answer, however, he reconsidered.

The answer had come to him. It was obvious now.

"Oh, Murtha. I'd say Murtha," Dillard said.

Lydon Murtha takes that as a compliment. "I joke around, try to lighten things up, have fun," the junior offensive tackle said. "That's kind of my personality."

Besides, football, particularly at the major college level, is a "pretty mentally challenging sport," he said. "We all get up-tight. We're on edge. So I just kind of lighten the mood, you know?"

The mental aspect of the game probably held Murtha back until last season, according to offensive line coach Dennis Wagner. He really didn't understand his ability, what he was capable of doing, and because of that he hadn't been challenging himself as much as he should have been.

"Each person is different," Wagner said early in training camp. "We all mature at different levels. The light bulb really came on for him, I thought, midway through the season last year."

Murtha started three of the last five games, two at left tackle and the other at right tackle, against Auburn in the Cotton Bowl. He continued to play well in spring practice.

In fact, "he had a tremendous spring," said Wagner.

Murtha established himself at right tackle, as the offensive line was shuffled to account for the departure of Chris Patrick, the starting left tackle most of the season.

Carl Nicks moved from right tackle to left. Matt Slauson moved from right tackle to guard. And Murtha moved from left tackle, where he had been Patrick's back-up.

Though no position is permanent in the offensive line, except of course center, Murtha appears to have settled in at right tackle. And that's where he's most comfortable.

"They say right-hand dominant," he said. "I'm stronger at that side, I guess."

Otherwise, there is little difference between the two tackles. The play-calling is the same. "Just the right tackle, I would say, is more the brute tackle," Murtha said.

His attitude is different this season. He has made "a 180," though not necessarily because he's on the right side. "Now that I have a starting role, that's the main thing," he said.

"I was rotating before, and I didn't really like rotating too much. It threw me off. It takes away your momentum during a game. Now that I have a starting role, it kind of forces you to step up."

Wagner wasn't surprised by Murtha's training-camp, Mohawk haircut.

"We tell our guys we're not really into haircuts and telling them what they do or don't do. It's just (to) be respectful, wear something your parents would allow you to wear," said Wagner.

"If we think it's offending to anyone or we were offended, we would tell them. But it's camp and there are a lot worse things we could do than cut a Mohawk in our hair."

He spoke in the collective "we." He didn't have a Mohawk.

When he played in the offensive line in college he had long hair, hanging out the back of his helmet, and for a time it was bleached blonde. His offensive linemen have seen the photographs.

As soon as he was married, his wife "straightened me out," he has said. The hair was cut.

"It wasn't that long," Murtha said. "But I give him crap about it."

In addition to the training-camp Mohawk, shaped by Slauson with a razor, Murtha has dyed his hair red and worn what he calls a "skunk Mohawk," a white stripe dyed down the middle of hair otherwise dyed coal black. Last year during the winter, his hair was cut in a mullet. He'll try anything.

"They say your mom's dad, if he goes bald, you will, right? Well, I won't have my hair much longer, I guess, so I can do whatever I want with it," he said. "I've shaved it every which way."

The best he's had? "Probably the mullet. I like mullets," he said.

Murtha might have been the most prominent member of coach Bill Callahan's first recruiting class. He was the Gatorade Player of the Year in Minnesota as a senior, on a Hutchinson High team that included Cornhusker teammate Nate Swift and Minnesota quarterback Tony Mortensen.

Recruiting analyst Tom Lemming rated him the nation's top tackle prospect. He committed to Minnesota during his junior year in high school, and most recruiters backed off. Nebraska came in late, convincing him to visit in January of 2004, a month before letters of intent could be signed.

Murtha changed his mind. He had committed too early, "not knowing the aspects of it," he said. Minnesota "wasn't right for me. The campus was too big, the whole works."

Nebraska seemed a good fit. Swift told him he would like it, but didn't try to sway him.

"No one really hassled me," Murtha said.

He arrived with high expectations, not so much his but those of fans. And it appeared he might play without redshirting, something offensive linemen almost never did at Nebraska.

Those expectations were quickly doused, however, when he was injured in a freak accident early in training camp. A piece of practice apparatus, "the chute," fell on a calf.

Other injuries have hampered his progress, too.

"I'm kind of a train wreck," he said recently when asked to recount them. "Wow, I had my knee scoped. I had surgery on my shoulder, tore that out, had surgery on my nose.

"Let's see, since I've been here, I think that's about it."

The "chute" accident wasn't the most unusual, though. A couple of days before the 2005 Spring Game, he was leaving Memorial Stadium on his mo-ped when he collided with a car making an unexpected U-turn. "I call it a 'motorcycle' accident," he said. "It sounds a little more tough."

He suffered a torn meniscus but played in the Spring Game. His dad confiscated the mo-ped.

"I think the car was damaged more than my mo-ped," Murtha said.

Even without the injuries, he probably would have needed time to adjust to the college game. Recruiting hype creates considerable pressure, as he quickly learned.

"I used to get pretty down," said Murtha. "I tried to make a good impression. Any player who goes to a big school wants to make a good impression on the whole state. You're playing for such a good program you want to do the best you can. I really put it on myself to perform.

"If I screwed up at all, I'd get down about it."

A player his size — 6-foot-7 and 300-plus — can dominate in high school. He might line up against a 190-pound defensive tackle. But that's not the case at the collegiate level.

"In college, everyone's got the best players," he said.

Recruiting rankings contribute to unreasonable expectations.

"A lot of people look at how many stars you are, this and that," said Murtha. "For instance, I think I was a four-star or five-star, I don't quite remember. But 'top tackle in the nation' . . . I came in here and didn't do anything until now. Just my junior year I'm really starting to play well, live up to expectations, while Matt Slauson, who had no awards and wasn't really recruited, he's just dominating.

"So you've got to come in, just be humble and work as hard as you can."

Hockey was Murtha's first love in athletics. As he remembers it, he was on skates about the age of 3, soon after his family moved to Minnesota. That stands to reason. Minnesota is a hockey state, though his hometown, Hutchinson, is an exception. High school football has an edge on hockey there.

He was a good skater, still is for that matter. But he doesn't get many opportunities these days. There's no place in Lincoln for open skating, and even if there were, he doesn't have the time.

He goes to Lincoln Stars hockey games when he has time. He enjoys watching hockey, in person. He won't watch it on television. As a rule, he doesn't watch any sports on television.

"Believe it or not, I'm not a huge sports fan," he said.

But when he's home, he'll go to see the NHL's Minnesota Wild.

Hockey is "pretty simple," he said. "It's just passing the puck around. You have to be really athletic, and you see some of these guys, how they control the puck, hit people . . . it's a great game."

He wasn't as big as he is now, of course. He quit playing hockey his junior year in high school. But size doesn't always define a player on ice. "I'll tell you what, those little guys who fly around, they're the ones that are hitting you and hurting you. I used to love getting in little fights," he said.

"Guys get in trouble a lot in hockey, doing dirty things. Those little guys would hip-check you and you'd fly into the boards. I broke my collarbone twice, hurt my knee once."

He was a defenseman, but "I probably tried to handle the puck more than I should have," he said.

Was he a budding Bobby Orr, the Hall of Fame defenseman for the Boston Bruins?

"No, I wasn't born in 1920," said Murtha.

He was born in Homestead, Fla., in 1985. His dad was stationed at the Air Force base there. A couple of years after his family moved to Minnesota, Hurricane Andrew swept south Florida.

"It wiped out the entire Air Force base," he said. "So basically we moved just in time."

His family has returned to Florida many times to visit relatives there, as well as to vacation.

"I love Florida, love it," he said. "It's a great place."

He's been to Disney World probably 10 times. It's also a great place, though he would still avoid the 'It's a Small World' ride, "with all those little dolls. That really creeps me out," he said.

"I try to stay out of there as much as I can. I usually have nightmares."

He's a funny guy, who belongs in Minnesota.

"I probably couldn't go there (Florida) now because I'm sweating," he said after practice on a mild September afternoon. "I'm soaking wet if it's 70 degrees.

"I need cold, so I prefer Minnesota."