Nebraska coach Bo Pelini maybe best summed up Saturday in the first five words of his postgame press conference: “We got through this one.”

There was running debate all week about what the Huskers could get out of playing Idaho State and how it might (or might not) prepare them for next week’s Big Ten opener with Wisconsin.

Idaho State is a Football Championship Subdivision team, and not an upper-tier one, either.

So Pelini also wasn’t quite sure what to say when asked after the 73-7 victory what NU could take away from its final nonconference game.

“Not a lot,” he said. “I said to the team last night, ‘We’ll find out how mature we are as a football team.’ How were they going to approach the game? Were we going to go out there and do what we’re capable of doing, regardless of who the opponent was? And play the kind of football we’re capable of playing? I thought we did that early on.

“It’s real easy to have a letdown or look ahead, but it’s first things first. You have to respect the game and how you play it. I thought our guys did that.”

Some other final notes from Saturday:

>> Nebraska improved to 9-0 since 1992 against teams from the FCS (formerly NCAA Division I-AA).

>> NU has started the season with at least 250 rushing yards in four straight games (getting 385 against the Bengals). The Huskers last started a season that way in 2000.

>> The Huskers had six scoring plays of at least 25 yards – and those six from six different players.

>> Rex Burkhead used his 119 rushing yards to move into the Huskers’ all-time Top 10. The senior is now No. 7 at 2,841 after passing Cory Ross, Dahrran Diedrick, Lawrence Phillips and I.M. Hipp.