This time last year, Nebraska wasn't making a dent in the various preseason forecasts, and not surprisingly, Bo Pelini didn't take the Big 12 media's forecast that Nebraska would win the North division Monday as a sign of his program's imminent resurrection to the steamrolling juggernauts of yore:
"Whether they pick us first or last, it doesn’t really make a difference. ... I know one thing: Our players don’t feel like Nebraska is back because our expectations are very high for what we want to be and where we’re headed," Pelini said. "I tell them all the time it’s my job to keep them grounded. I think they start to feel the momentum from last year. That’s a good thing. … But they also know there’s a lot of work in front of us to get where we want to be."
It's not like the Huskers have turned into Washington or Syracuse over the last seven years: They're still selling out every game. They won 10 in 2003 (yet still fired Frank Solich) and nine games with Cotton and Gator bowl bids in 2006 and 2008, so clearly returning to Jan. 1 bowls isn't filling the void. They were in the Big 12 Championship game in '06, tied Missouri for the division title last year and have pretty easily the best record in the North division in the years since their last conference championship, but the way things have been going lately, even resuming control of the division doesn't carry much cachet in itself.
No, in tangible terms, it's going to take much more impressive booty -- conference championships, BCS games, top-10 finishes -- to put the malaise of the last seven years to bed, and it may even take a couple years of that kind of success before Nebraska is really back on the perch it took for granted for 30 years; see Notre Dame, for example, which was briefly "back" with BCS seasons in 2005 and 2006 but quickly collapsed because it lacked a foundation to sustain. Even after an undefeated regular season, Alabama won't really be "back" until it redefines last year's success as the norm and not another aberration -- hey, Mike DuBose and Mike Shula won 10 games in a season, too! -- in a decade-long struggle against mediocrity. Nebraska, which hasn't had two straight seasons it can be really satisfied with since 2000-01, is in the same boat, still needing to prove it's not just another 7-5 team that played a little over its head last year.
There's really only one way to do that, and it's not measured in division titles (at least not in this division) or bowl games as much as it is in simple big wins, and the uneasy feeling in Lincoln must steam largely from the fact that the Huskers haven't really had one of those since Eric Crouch had his Heisman moment against then-No. 2 Oklahoma back in 2001:
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