Is Nebraska football back?

The reporters wouldn't back down – they just had to know.

At last month's Big 12 Conference media days in Irving, Texas, journalists from around the nation gathered around coach Bo Pelini and his players, and nearly all of them asked the same question.

Is Nebraska back?

It's a loaded question, and one that's hard to assess after only one season with a new coaching staff.

The leader of that staff wasn't interesting in giving the writers what they wanted.

"All of the expectations, that's for the fans and the media," Pelini said. "I know one thing: Our players don't feel like Nebraska's back."

A 9-4 season that ended with exhilarating wins over Colorado and Clemson has helped re-energize a slumping program that endured two losing seasons under former coach Bill Callahan.

The four-win turnaround in Pelini's first year set a high standard for year two. NU was tabbed as the favorite to win the Big 12 North this year by the conference media.

With the success found in year one, the writers' question of whether Nebraska has returned to the top of the college football heap has some merit. The standard to assess such claims, though, is difficult to determine.

In order for NU to return to a spot among the nation's elite football programs, what needs to take place? Is the sign of progress wins, conference titles and bowl games?

Certainly, progress can be measured by numbers. NU's three national championship teams of the 1990s put up an average of 44 points per game and held opponents to 15 points per game.

During that decade, the Huskers went 28-12-1 against ranked opponents and had an average end-of-season Associated Press poll ranking of No. 9. The program enjoyed a 54-week streak in the AP top 10 that began in 1999 and ended with a loss to Penn State in 2002.

But NU went 13-8 between that game and the end of the 2003 regular season. Then-athletic director Steve Peterson famously declared it was time to change coaches and refused to "let the program gravitate into mediocrity."

When Pelini took over last year following the four-year, 27-22 Callahan regime, he inherited a broken team that had given up more than 42 points per game in conference play in 2007.

Sure, the pass-happy spread offenses became popular and flourished during this time, but the problem was undoubtedly more about NU's Blackshirt-less defense.

Pelini and his staff turned a defense that ranked 112th in the nation in 2007 into the 55th-ranked total defense in the nation. His team gave up more than 125 fewer yards per game and finished second in the Big 12 in total defense.

"I think they showed considerable improvement last year, particularly on the defensive side of the ball," athletic director Tom Osborne said. "Sure, you don't want to just be 55th in the nation, but the defensive improvement was excellent."

The numbers were better, and so were the things stats can't measure.

When Osborne fired Callahan, he told reporters he didn't see the ferocity that his old defenses used to play with, and that was one of the most troubling facts about the old staff.

"You have to play with intensity," he said then. "Sometimes, you just didn't see the effort and intensity you like to see in a football game. We used to be a team people hated to play, because they felt it for two or three weeks."

Former NU star defensive tackle Jason Peter said under the old coaching staff, there wasn't that confidence and swagger that he and his teammates used to flaunt and use to their advantage in the 1990s.

"I think they're getting there, they're on the right path," Peter said. "I don't know if it's just a one year fix-it job. It takes a few years of that mentality being instilled in the younger guys."

Peter said it took NU's 18-16 loss to Florida State in the 1994 Orange Bowl to make players realize they could compete with the nation's best. Once they figured that out, Nebraska won 49 games and three titles over the next four years.

"We could play those Florida teams that had a ton of speed, we could compete and we could win those games," Peter said. "In the year following that game, there was just that confidence. We knew inside that we could compete and that we were just as good as, if not better than, everybody else."

Osborne saw a team with an improved morale in 2008 under the new staff, and he was pleased.

"I didn't have the feeling that they gave up any games last year or that they went in thinking they couldn't win," he said. "There was a time when if you got down a couple touchdowns, players didn't believe they could pull it out. That doesn't seem to be the case now."

Peter and former Husker receiver Matt Davison agreed there's no better test of whether or not Nebraska's back than games against top opponents.

It's been a long time since Nebraska had a "signature win," one of those games that propels the team into the national spotlight with a key victory over a strong opponent. NU's dramatic win over Oklahoma in 2001 was the last time the team knocked off a top-10 opponent, and the last time the Huskers defeated Oklahoma or Texas.

There were plenty of opportunities since then. A win over OU in the 2006 Big 12 title game would have put NU in a BCS game and provided a major boost to the program. Last year, the Huskers nearly defeated then-No. 7 Texas Tech in overtime, and the matchup with No. 4 Missouri could have been a season-changing win.

And then, of course, there were those games against USC in 2006 and 2007, the ones that were meant to put Nebraska back on the national map. The 2007 game was even seen as a chance to launch the Huskers into national title contention.

This year, landing that elusive signature win will have to take place either in a road game at Virginia Tech on Sept. 19 or at home against Oklahoma on Nov. 7.

Peter sees the Virginia Tech matchup – NU's first road game of the year – as a crucial game for the fate of the season.

"If they're able to win in a hostile environment like that against a quality team, I think you're going to see a different team from there on out," he said. "They'll believe they can beat anybody. You need that in order to be back.

"You've got to remember, too, that we're breaking in a new quarterback," he said. "Who knows how that's going to go."

As Peter put it, that first road game in Blacksburg, Va., will be the true test of "what's pumping" inside Zac Lee – "we'll know if it's the real thing or if it's just Kool-Aid."

Davison said defeating one of those two teams is the most important thing to getting "back." In order for the Huskers to win between eight and 10 games this fall, he said, they'll have to beat somebody they're not supposed to.

"That win over Oklahoma in 2001, that was the last big game Nebraska won," Davison said. "It's disappointing to say, but that was the last team that led SportsCenter with a win. We have to win one of those games that make the national media and everybody talk about Nebraska."

Even if NU does have a strong 2009 season, there's still the issue of the conference championship game and the bowl game.

"In my mind, I think Nebraska should win the North every year," Davison said. "We have to get back to winning championships. That means winning conference championships, and that means winning the North every year."

Davison admits that probably won't happen for 10 straight years, but he said the team should at least be in the hunt on an annual basis.

"That means you have a shot at a BCS game and maybe the national title," he said. "When Nebraska gets back to that status, I think you can say the program is where we want and expect it to be."

Is a berth in the conference title game enough for NU to officially be "back" in the eyes of Pelini? Not even close.

"We won't be satisfied until we win them all - until we're playing for a national championship," Pelini said sternly at the media days.

"I'd probably agree with that," Peter said. "The goal each year should be to win every game."

Osborne, the architect of the glory days which today's Huskers hope to return to, said he didn't know what "back" exactly meant.

"It would probably mean being competitive with the top level of the conference and a decent chance to win it with a decent chance to go to a BCS game and compete for a championship," he said.

At the media days, Pelini said he "didn't know" how close NU is to returning, but former players sense that the confidence and intensity is quickly returning to the program and that good things are on the way.

The presence of Osborne is a major factor for why Davison is certain that the program will be back on top.

"It's the best resource in the whole country, because he knows the game better than anybody," Davison said. "Plus, Bo has an unbelievable desire to win and passion for getting most out of his players. Those two guys really is what makes me confident we're going to get back to where we want to be."

When former NU offensive guard Dwain Carlson attended practice on Aug. 14 with three of his fellow teammates from the 1962 squad, to promote the upcoming 300th sellout game against Louisiana-Lafayette, he sensed this year's team is starting to figure things out.

"I don't think there's any doubt we kind of lost our way, but we're back on track," Carlson said. "Everything is cooking, and if we can keep Tom and Bo around, I think we're going places. I think we're definitely back."

maxolson@dailynebraskan.com