OMAHA, Neb. -- The comparisons to Randy Johnson are inevitable. When Jeff Niemann walks into a room, the first thing you do is look up.

	Wade Townsend will try to deliver Rice's first national title.

A gruff, 6-foot-9 inch flamethrower, Niemann is the intimidating right-hander who has given up just four runs in three postseason starts. He's a finalist for one of college baseball's Player of the Year awards, having struck out 152 hitters in 129.1 innings.

Yet at Friday afternoon's media session, Stanford seemed relatively unimpressed. Sure, they respect Niemann -- who hasn't lost a game since May 8, 2002 -- and his Rice teammates. Sure they know they have their work cut out for them. But read between the lines and you get the feeling they're almost excited about the monumental challenge that awaits them in Saturday's Game 1 of the College World Series Championship.

"He's a big guy and everything," Stanford right fielder Carlos Quentin said, eyeing Niemann like he was a prize fighter at the other end of the interview table, "but you've still got to throw the ball over the plate. It's going to be fun to see just what we can do."

So far this season, nobody has been able to do much of anything against Niemann. In three postseason starts, he has held hitters to a .133 average while striking out 32 in 22 innings. It's his dominance, combined with that of likely Game 2 starter Wade Townsend, (11-1, 1.92 ERA), that has some believing Rice, a school that has never won an NCAA team championship, is the favorite.

"I'm not sure about that," Quentin said. "It's still Stanford."

And the Cardinal still have a strong offense. Stanford is hitting .322 as a team, which would rank third on the school's all-time single-season list. They've posted a .339 average and are averaging just under nine runs per game in ten postseason games. Two of its hitters -- Quentin (.404) and Garko (.410) -- are hitting over .400 for the year. And three of its hitters, Quentin (12), Garko (19) and Danny Putnam (15), have double-digit home runs.

In Thursday night's win-or-go-home game against Cal State Fullerton, three different Cardinal players -- Chris Carter, Jonny Ash and Putnam -- hit two-run homers against a well-respected Fullerton staff.

It creates a marquee match up of power pitching against power hitting this weekend.

"The key to this series is getting to their starters," said Putnam, whose 10th-inning shot Thursday was the difference. "I'm not sure how deep their bullpen is. So we need to put pressure on them and not give away any easy outs.

"It's got to get to the same spot, whether it's 87 or 95," Putnam said. "You just go up there looking for a pitch in your zone."

For the first time in College World Series history, the championship will be determined by a best-of-three series, instead of one, winner-take-all game. It's a change that nearly every coach and player has applauded. In this case, some think it favors Rice, thanks to Niemann and Townsend. Others think it favors Stanford, which has a deeper bullpen. Whatever the case, the change has been praised by everyone.

"It's something that I've been hoping for for a long time," Graham said. "I think it's great. I don't think I liked the idea of the single most dominant pitcher going out there and that being it."

Said Stanford ace John Hudgins, whose complete-game five-hitter on Wednesday helped the Cardinal reach the championship game: "This will show whose the best team, not who has the best game," Hudgins said. "And that's the way it should be played."

Wayne Drehs is a staff writer at ESPN.com