LINCOLN, Neb. _ Nebraska is trying to ruin unbeaten and third-ranked Texas' chance to play for the national championship. It'd only be payback for the 1996 Cornhuskers.

Even so, such an upset would be hard-pressed to match the magnitude of the 1996 game in St. Louis, where 20-point-underdog Texas stunned the Huskers 37-27 and ended their hopes of winning a third straight national title.

Jason Peter, who played defensive tackle on Nebraska's 1994-95 consensus and '97 coaches' national championship teams, said he remembers that loss to Texas more than any of the 49 wins he was part of during the Huskers' domination of college football in the mid 1990s.

"There was a big emptiness in everyone's stomach knowing what we just let slip from our fingers, our grasp," Peter recalled. "You can chalk it up to a bunch of things _ looking ahead, guys coming off the flu after that Colorado game in the snow _ or you can chalk it up to Texas having our number. We just couldn't get the job done."

The setup for Saturday's game at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, is similar to the situation in '96.

The Longhorns (12-0), led by Heisman Trophy front-runner Colt McCoy, have a quick-strike offense averaging 43 points a game and a defense and special teams that rank among the nation's best. All they need is a win over Nebraska to play in the national championship game in Pasadena, Calif., almost surely against Florida or Alabama.

The 21st-ranked Huskers (9-3), like the Longhorns in '96, are playing their best football late in the season and have nothing to lose. If they win, they will have overachieved by earning a BCS bowl bid. If they lose, they'll likely play in the Holiday Bowl and meet preseason expectations for coach Bo Pelini's second year.

"Texas is the favorite, but if you ask those fellas from the '96 Nebraska team, that doesn't mean that much," said John Mackovic, who coached the Longhorns from 1992-97.

Texas entered the 1996 Big 12 championship game 7-4 and unranked. The Longhorns had gotten off to a 3-4 start but won their last four regular-season games to take the South Division.

Nebraska, which had a 26-game win streak end with a 19-0 loss at Arizona State in the second game of the season, was 10-1 and ranked No. 3. With a win over the Longhorns, the Huskers would have played Florida State in the Sugar Bowl for the national title.

Mackovic's gutsy fourth-down call that all but finished off the Huskers.