This argument will continue forever but without a playoff system the only gauge is subjective based on the play of your ENTIRE season. True, it would seem logical that you would need to win your conference to play for the title and no doubt that the Huskers got blown out by CU. BTW- Funny that Oregon or the Pac-10 doesn't even HAVE a conference title game. But to boil it all down, the Huskers only suffered one half of terrible play all season which it couldn't recover from in the second half (but almost did). Crouch had his best game (statistically) against CU. That's it. One bad defensive half. One loss. The rest of the season was solid. Obviously other teams had great seasons as well. So now we have to rely on a computer to tell us which one is the best.
Now the Huskers have to prove it to everybody where they belong, not just to themselves. You can bet you will see the most intense, prepared, and focused Husker team out on the field.
Betting on the Huskers to win the Rose bowl would be wise IMHO.