Lincoln, Neb. ? Nebraska quarterback Joe Ganz bruised his heel on one play and twisted his knee on the other, but his coach, Bo Pelini, said he didn’t even consider removing him from the game.

“If I wanted to fight him on the sidelines,” Pelini said. “He would have fought me before he would have let me take him out.”

Pause.

“I would have won,” added Pelini, the fiery first-year coach.

Would Ganz really have fought him to stay in the game?

“Absolutely,” Ganz said.

Would Pelini have taken him?

“I don’t think so,” Ganz said. “I’d have about 113 other guys on my side.”

All sorts of happy talk was flying back and forth between Cornhuskers players and coaches after a 45-35 victory against Kansas in Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium, but there were some regrets stated about the first number in the final score not being bigger.

As usual, Nebraska lost the turnover battle, this time by a 3-1 margin.

“We left a lot of points out there in the first half,” Pelini said. “I thought we were in control of that first half, and the turnovers really hurt us. I was disappointed to end the half 14-14. We’ve got to stop shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Echoed Ganz: “We didn’t play as well as we could. We still had a couple turnovers, and we probably left 14 or 17 points on the field. We have a really good offense, it’s just the only thing stopping us right now is ourselves.”

The turnovers didn’t stop a festive postgame mood for the Huskers, who had little trouble moving the ball against KU’s defense.

“It was awesome,” Ganz said. “It just feels so good to come back and redeem ourselves from what happened last year.”

What happened last year was Kansas pinned a 76-39 humiliation on Nebraska in Lawrence, defeating the Cornhuskers for the second time in a three-year span. All week, Nebraska players downplayed the revenge factor, but it clearly played in the team’s motivation.

“We went down there and got beat pretty soundly last year and lost some respect for the program,” defensive end Zach Potter said. “We wanted to come out today and regain some of that respect that Kansas may have lost for us as a program. You know, we’re still Nebraska and they’re still Kansas.”