This decade of Nebraska football came closer than you think to traveling full circle.

It began with a Fiesta Bowl win over Tennessee that seemed to validate the Frank Solich era, and position the Cornhuskers as a prime national title contender in 2000.

It ended with Nebraska coming within one second of earning another trip to Arizona and setting up a run at the national title in 2010.

In between those bookends, the seams of the program came apart not once – but twice.

You know the story. It's plenty juicy, painful and unforgettable.

When mediocrity, struggle and frustration finally knocked on NU's door – as it has with every college football program in the last 30 years – it rocked most fans, who'd grown to love the bucolic, never-changing nature of the Cornhuskers - nine wins, option football, red balloons, stoic head coaches – without understanding the brilliance, timing, effort and sheer good fortune that went into that incredible run from Bob Devaney's hiring, really until the end of 2001, when Colorado smashed the Huskers in the Day-After-Thanksgiving Massacre, triggering whispers that only continued in a blowout Rose Bowl loss, and a subsequently disappointing 2002 campaign.

We learned what most major programs already knew: Money, influence and image overshadows the mission of educating and coaching 18-to-22-year-old men. We learned that TV dollars and coverage matter more than it should. We learned that winning is put at such a premium that most programs are willing to lard up their non-conference schedules with fattened lambs so as to ensure that bowl game that's apparently so precious to student-athletes.

We learned that a great running backs coach doesn't necessarily translate into an inspiring head coach. That the best-laid plans of the Ozfather when awry, to some extent, because he handed over leadership to Frank Solich, but not complete ownership. We'll never know how Solich might have fared if he'd courted a staff solely of his choosing. If Tom Osborne hadn't offered the seemingly wise, but ultimately imperfect advice of retaining the entire staff. Solich might have soared higher. Or he might have flamed out sooner.

But Solich never got his man at quarterback – and no, I don't think Joe Dailey was that guy, either – and the program slowly lost momentum. In 2002, it was a team still flush with athletes, but not much levity. Solich looked beleaguered for much of that season – a confused on-field visage was one of Solich's unintended, but real nonetheless, weaknesses – the offense hinging, primarily, on whether Jammal Lord could whittle and plow his way through the defense. The innovation, inspiration and pluck were on empty.

Leaks on the just-then-burgeoning Internet message boards abounded. Practice scuffles. Coach squabbles. Pointless debates over Solich and his recruiting coordinator, Dave Gillespie. Boosters took these boards like street walkers to crack, and, to some extent, the man was a casualty of that technology. Recruiting discussions, fueled by the emerging market of exclusive (and intrusive) recruiting coverage, became the belle du jour. Solich was a casualty of the media in general. The Husker nightly radio program, far from the weak, perfunctory broth it is today, did, as well. The papers tread gently at first, but started asking harder questions, in louder word choices, after the Day-After-Thanksgiving Massacre.

By the end of 2002, after a loss to thoroughly average Mississippi in the thoroughly average Independence Bowl, Nebraska was, let's face it, a fading light.

And then Solich hired Bo Pelini.

There was no way to measure Bo's impact before he marshaled Nebraska's defense into a lethal force. If then-Athletic Director Steve Pederson made a mistake of hubris, it wasn't necessarily firing Solich – we could debate that all day - but believing Solich was incapable of making a top-shelf decision.

Except Frank did: He got Bo. And that was damn smart for Nebraska.

And inconvenient for Pederson.

Had Solich stuck with Craig Bohl, or hired 90 percent of the perfectly-functional defensive coordinators in the football world, NU finishes 5-7 in 2003 and Pederson gets his pick of the coaching litter. We never know Bill Callahan. Pederson probably never considers Houston Nutt, for that matter.

But Pelini was a wild card. The game-changer. A tactician and motivator. His defensive success, as we've seen, wasn't lightning in a bottle. It wasn't apocryphal. It was the real thing. And his players loved him for it. In the eyes of many fans, he even saved Solich's job.

I wonder if fans appreciated that when they clamored for Solich to get one more year, who they were really applauding was - Pelini. The offense in 2003 was sluggish and one-dimensional. Even more than 2002. Almost as bad as 2009. And there was no real guarantee it was getting any better. Aside from making one brilliant hire, Solich's attachment to the defense was negligible. And yet Pelini produced the bulk of a 10-3 season, and made an incredible splash, the kind that earned him, frankly, a shot at the head coaching job.

Much like Ndamukong Suh earned the Heisman - but fell short because of sheer, ingrained politics and shoddy thinking – Pederson, a modern-businessman-acting-as-AD, rejected Pelini for a lack of flash, and experience. While Pelini flourished elsewhere, Pederson embarked on what turned out to be an intensely personal odyssey over the next four years – an era that turned out to be as much about him as it was Bill Callahan.

The events, controversies, triumphs and tumbles of that time you already know well. I think Pederson's imprint – especially in the way Husker fans view recruiting – is deeper than some think. Pederson's strange methodology was criticized; his brazen greed for winning, for putting his stamp of restraint on the school (which he has with that blockish, monolithic font that's used for everything Husker) is not unlike most in the business world. Indeed, Pederson, and the boosters that supported him, introduced Husker fans to the uncomfortable “efficiency model” of college athletics. It's groupthink, multiplied. A place where individualism was reserved, primarily, for the coaches – not the department employees.

I won't lie – the corporate business model does little for me. Never has. It's put college sports, and America, in a reasonably phony place that eyes the “popular” and “marketable” more than it does the “sustainable.” I recall reading Callahan's comments before his first season, about how “geeked up” he was to coach NU. Huh? This, the son of a Chicago cop.

Pederson, who I think liked being hip. So many of visual, stylistic choices around campus – especially the donor wall recalling (somewhat inappropriately) the Vietnam Memorial - suggested the spare, modern look of suburban office buildings, which architects fancy as commercial art in a landscape of interstate and topiary mazes. He never could appreciate the decided uncool of a guy like Pelini, who pairs a sweatshirt with khakis, tucking a play card into his pants. The man is subtle like an Italian hoagie.

Tom Osborne could, though, and when he returned to NU – after his stint in Congress, defeat in the gubernatorial race and a bewildering, self-imposed semi-exile from the Huskers – he immediately filled all that spare wall space Pederson adored with trophies, plaques, pictures and various memorabilia. He commissioned a giant, gaudy (and, it must be said, striking in a colorful, pretty way) mural to be placed in the front hall of the North Stadium building named after him. And he hired Pelini, who, in turn, thanked Frank Solich in the opening statement after his hiring.

Some of the old critics have walked back through the door. It stands to reason they would. But to peer inside Nebraska 2009 is not to see NU 2002, or even NU 2003. Although Shawn Watson weathers some significant shots across his bow, and the offensive staff is, to some extent, in the middle of locating an identity, there is a sense of purpose, fused with high energy, that permeates North Stadium. Pelini, whatever his faults, combines an old-school will with new-school schemes, a dynamic coupling that will eventually reshape the offense, for better or worse, into a similar mold.

See also: NU's All-Decade Team, 10 Best Moments, 10 Worst Moments and A Decade of Upheaval - And Healing

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If a fan of Nebraska athletics was already fearful that the Big 12 conference had tilted permanently in favor of Texas, consider this column a long, unpleasant spelunk into the cave of more proof.

According to data compiled by the NCAA’s Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act, the Longhorns’ athletic department brought $120.3 million in revenue in 2007-2008. That’s $32 million more than the second-place school in the Big 12 (the identity of which might surprise you, more on that in a minute).

That whopping dollar amount is the GDP of some third-world countries, and tops in college sports – just slightly ahead of Ohio State, which culls a major wad of cash from the Big Ten Network and runs two Jack Nicklaus-endorsed golf courses.

As for football revenue, UT was the nation’s No. 1 there, too, bringing in $72.9 million.

Yeah, in the Big 12, Nebraska was second. At $49 million. That’s close to the national top ten.

But the gap between NU and UT – almost $24 million - is larger the entire football revenue of six Big 12 teams. Texas earned five times what Kansas reported – although KU had $50 million of revenue in the “not allocated” category - and nearly doubled the $40.9 million taken in by Oklahoma, a program that’s had more success than its rival over the last decade (one more reason to respect Bob Stoops, eh?).

UT recorded more than $52 million in profit. That alone is more than the reported football revenues of any Big 12 team. And while Texas also spends more money on football, it only spends a fraction more - $20 million vs. the $19 million spent by Texas A&M, the $18.8 million spent by OU and the $18.7 spent by Nebraska.

Why? Because the Longhorns merely have to drive a couple hours to many of the nation’s best football recruits who reside in cities surrounding Austin – Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth, San Antonio. How hard is it to recruit when you’ve got most of your class figured out before Memorial Day?

Is Texas the lone “have” in the conference? Of course not. OU holds its own. Kansas leads the way in basketball revenue. Oklahoma State, behind the donor dollars of billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens, is actually second in total revenue at $88 million. And Texas A&M, with Bill Byrne as the athletic director, will make a serious push at UT in all the pertinent Olympic, smaller sports. The Aggies already have, in fact, winning national titles in men’s golf and track.

Nebraska is stuck in a tougher spot. The Huskers have always hung their hat on football, and have a former football coach as the athletic director. Sans Texas (and Pickens, I suppose), nobody runs a better fundraising show in the Big 12, and Tom Osborne has brought needed stability back to North Stadium.

NU had the upper hand for more than 30 years, 1970-2001, winning five national titles to Texas’ zero, playing in countless more title games (UT played in one and lost to Notre Dame) winning one more Heisman Trophy, more O’Brien Awards, more Lombardis, more Outlands, you name it. But UT, right now, simply does football better, and has since 2002.

The orderly Big 12 reinvigorated Texas, which suffered in the lawless, hate-fueled Southwestern Conference. Like a defeated corporate giant suddenly tabbed to run another company, UT threw around far more bluster and weight upon its entrance into the league than its athletic portfolio suggested it could.

Too willing to topple the Big Red Machine in football – and upon the inception of the Big 12, there was no college football program more powerful and intimidating than Nebraska - Big 12 South members unwisely followed the Longhorns’ lead on a number of issues, whether it was partial academic qualifiers, television contracts or the facilities arms race. It all favored Texas.

You think Iowa State wouldn’t mind some partial qualifiers? Colorado? Kansas State? Oklahoma State? You think these same schools enjoy building perk after perk for 19-year-olds, only to see Texas, its stadium not even full for every game, roll out every red carpet known to man?

Not to say that UT has ill in mind for the rest of the league, but the numbers simply don’t lie: The Longhorns, financially, has the Big 12 wrapped around its burnt orange finger.

Once upon a time, the most loathed man in the history of NU athletics, Steve Pederson, vowed not to surrender the Big 12 to Texas (and Oklahoma). It was a cocky statement then, an affront to some Husker fans who believed Nebraska ruled the Big 12 roost for many years, and weren’t far, at the time, from ruling it again.

But it’s time get honest. This isn’t 1996 anymore, and Texas made three terrific hires – Mack Brown, Rick Barnes and Augie Garrido – when it counted. Brown and Garrido won national titles, and Barnes took the Horns to a Final Four. Since those hires, Nebraska’s on its third football coach, its third basketball coach, and currently slumping in baseball.

At $75.4 million, NU is now fifth in total revenue, behind Texas, Oklahoma State, Kansas (a surprising $86 million) and Oklahoma ($77 million). And Texas A&M, which was so bad off four years ago that the university actually loaned the athletic department $16 million, is not far behind at $74.7 million. Missouri doesn’t currently compete in terms of revenue, but the sleeping giant has finally woken up, as the Tigers won Big 12 titles in men’s basketball, softball, and women’s soccer, reaching the conference title games in baseball and football.

While Pederson, Bill Callahan and Co. dithered around with a culture change, Mizzou and KU caught up, Byrne started working from the ground up in College Station and OU and Texas broke further away from the pack.

So now is not the time for NU administrators or fans to get distracted by the sheer, stunning misery of two Big 12 North schools – Iowa State and Colorado – and the tumult engulfing Kansas State. They’re the jokes of the league, and Nebraska better plan on beating them consistently in just about everything.

It’s also not the time to get overly wistful for the old days of 2000, when the Huskers’ athletic program was the envy of the every school not named Stanford. It’s time to work smarter and harder.

Here's how.

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