Were You Not Entertained?: Nebraska kicks things off perfectly.

Personally, I thought the season opener was perfect.

We got a win.

We got a feel-good story in Cody Glenn.

We got another game next week.

When it comes to first games a win is really all you can ask for. (The Glenn story is a bonus.) Of course, that's never really the case. The first game is always looked at as so much more. After months of waiting we finally have real, new data and observations to work from and the temptation is just to leap headlong into the maw of analysis and opinion. There's still plenty of time for and value in doing that but this year I'm taking a different path: I'm just going to enjoy the questions themselves.

Some of those offseason questions have gone from theoretical to tangible, others have simply arisen (running game?) but at this point the only thing we should know in the glow of the morning after is this: None of them have been answered definitively, the story is just beginning.

Playwrights and those caffeine-addled guys working on screenplays in Starbucks across the country like to talk a lot about the inciting incident, what happens to a character to set the story in motion? Everything before that, typically the first act, is just characterization.

Remember the opening act of Gladiator? Here's what we learn very quickly in those first 20 minutes: Maximus is a badass war hero, favorite son of the Roman Empire who misses his family so much that he carries tiny wooden models of them into battle. It's not until his patronly king and then his family are murdered that the story truly begins.

I'm not sure the 2008 Nebraska Cornhuskers have reached their inciting incident yet but we're starting to find out what sort of leading man they might be. And while they didn't look like Maximus last night that's just fine.

The Nebraska of one game still seems more like a former champion fallen on hard times, but they're a former champion with a renewed passion to return to what they once were. Ganz and Glenn were mostly good, the defense was mostly mediocre but through all that the Huskers never seemed to lose control of the game. It could have been better but it could have been much, much worse (see also: Bowling Green, ECU).

Bo Pelini likes to talk a lot about perfection and Nebraska was far short of that on Saturday. That should be exciting. They won by more than three touchdowns against what should ultimately be viewed as a good opponent and there is still ample room for improvement.

What more could you ask for in a sport without a preseason? Perfection is the ideal early in the season, not the expectation.

Nobody is calling Nebraska perfect at this point, but if the definition of a good story is not being able to wait for the next chapter, the next scene, I'd call the start to the 2008 football season just that.