Mark Richt is one of the Georgia's baseball team's biggest fans, but while in his former hometown of Omaha, Neb., for the College World Series, he took time Tuesday to pay homage to a favorite team from his distant past.

The Georgia football coach said via phone from Memorial Stadium — where the Nebraska Cornhuskers have sold out an NCAA-record 289 straight football games — that if the Bulldogs win the NCAA title, it will throw down the gauntlet for his team.

Georgia is up one game in a best-of-three series with Fresno State. Game two is Tuesday night.

"After the game [Monday] ... I shook [All-America shortstop Gordon] Beckham's hand, and he said, 'If we win [Tuesday] night, that means you guys got to win a national championship too,' so it'll be even more pressure to get a championship," Richt said while addressing media by teleconference as they attended the Peachstate Pigskin Preview in Macon.

"But the most important championship we can even think about is the Eastern Division. That's the goal; that's where you've got to start. If you win that, you get to compete for the SEC championship, and if you win that, we all know it could catapult you into the national championship game."

Richt lived in Omaha as a child before moving to Colorado.

"I think my seventh birthday was the day we left to move ... but I grew up a Nebraska Cornhusker fan," Richt said. "That might have died down a little bit around 10th or 11th grade in high school. "I'm actually standing right in the heart of the Nebraska football field right now, right in the middle of their stadium. It's kind of exciting just hanging around, looking at all the tradition they have, too."

No, Richt said, Georgia is not negotiating with Nebraska to play football games against the 'Huskers. "We're kind of full for a while," he said.