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The way Nebraska’s 28-20 win over Colorado came down will keep lots of people busy sifting through its aftermath.

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Bo Pelini has things set up just the way he wants them now. He has a team that should be highly motivated to work hard in the week leading up to the Big 12 championship game after their coach declared that he wasn’t satisfied with the way the Cornhuskers played in any phase of the game.

“I thought we took a step back today,” said Pelini.

Bo seems destined to make a career out of being dissatisfied with his team’s performances. In many ways, that’s a good thing, because he seems to have a very high standard of excellence, and he is driven to achieve. So it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Blackshirts take a big step forward against Texas at Cowboys Stadium on Dec. 5.

That is, if the defense isn’t wearing down physically. Does anyone else think that the Husker defensive line seems a half-step slower than it did at midseason? Hopefully, Ndamukong Suh, Jared Crick and their teammates will have enough in the tank to run full-bore all game long down in Dallas.

One thing is clear: if Nebraska’s defensive line has as much trouble putting together a pass rush against Colt McCoy as it did Friday in Boulder, Nebraska is in trouble. If the Big 12 officials permit Texas’s offensive line to hold as much as they allowed Colorado’s, it will be a long day for Big Red fans, because I expect NU’s offense to have all kinds of trouble moving the ball against Texas.

Bo and his brother, defensive coordinator Carl Pelini, will be doing a lot of tinkering in the next seven days. It wouldn’t surprise me if they come up with a package of blitzes that keep the Longhorns off-balance for most of the evening. The defense will probably have to score another touchdown if Nebraska is to win its first conference title in a decade.

The creators of www.FireDanHawkins.net will be doing a lot of analysis, too. They will have plenty of fodder to chew on throughout a long winter, the second consecutive season in Boulder without a bowl game. They’re already howling at CU Athletic Director Mike Bohn’s decision to keep Hawkins for at least one more season.

I’ll leave the Hawkins bashing to the Colorado fans for now except to simply note that he is 16-33 in four seasons as head coach at CU.

Nebraska has enough issues of its own to keep us all busy for a few days talking about the Cornhuskers’ chances of giving undefeated Texas a decent game in their third conference title game matchup. By the way, no other pair of schools has met three times in the Big 12 championship game.

CU quarterback Tyler Hansen frustrated Husker pass rushers for most of the day, consistently escaping trouble to throw passes downfield. Often, they were off target, but he hit enough throws to make life rough for the Husker secondary.

“He’s a bit more elusive than other quarterbacks that we have seen,” said Ndamukong Suh afterward. “We still got back there. We just needed to make sure we got good shots on him.”

The problem was, NU didn’t get many good shots at Hansen and it will be as tough or tougher to pin down McCoy, who is probably the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy.

On the other hand, Pelini has said all season long something to the effect of what he repeated once again on Friday after beating Colorado.

“There’s a lot more out there for us, for this football team to do together,” said the coach. He is referring to games against Top 5-caliber opponents like Texas, who have to be thinking about winning with enough style points to ensure a trip to the BCS Championship Game in January. That sort of thinking is never healthy for a top-seeded team.

Couple that with the fact that the Husker team that will be driven hard by Pelini this week, and in that game, you have the makings of a potential upset, even though Texas has a clear edge in talent on offense. Luckily for Nebraska, defense and special teams often play a bigger role than any offense.

And just as luckily, a team which has been called out for a subpar performance has plenty of incentive to clear its name the following week.

Tad Stryker is the former sports editor of the North Platte Bulletin and provides analysis after each Husker football game for Bulletin readers. Stryker also writes for HuskerPedia (http://www.huskerpedia.com).