Well, there’s one check the Nebraska athletic department won’t have to write.

Those Memorial Stadium goal posts are still a standing.

The Huskers were the ones taken apart Saturday night. This was a knockout.

No. 1 Southern California is still the bully of college football. Don’t doubt. Just look at Saturday night’s score: Trojans 49, Huskers 31.

OK, look away now and take some Tylenol.

Maybe pass one to Husker coach Bill Callahan, too.

“He was disappointed in us. We’re already disappointed in ourselves,” Husker senior linebacker Bo Ruud said. “He knows that we’re better than that. I think that’s what really hurts him is he knows we didn’t play our best game. He knew we could have won that game. We didn’t perform, though. It’s on the players.”

No Hollywood slickness was needed to beat Nebraska on this night.

Just muscle — the Trojans had much, much more of it. And other things, plenty of other things, but let’s start with the muscle.

USC simply slammed the ball down the Huskers’ throat, running through holes big enough for Chevys, let alone running backs who run 40 yards in 4.4 seconds.

As Ruud tidily put it: “The defense did not show up.”

There was plenty of dancing on tables and hoarse screaming from fans leading up to the game (not to mention the occasional sidewalk handcuffing for disorderly conduct), but all that noise didn’t mean a whole lot of anything when USC ran its first play — a fullback belly run by freshman Stanley Havili that looked ridiculously simplistic.

It gained 50 yards and served as a warning. USC went 96 yards on that first drive for a touchdown. It took just four plays.

If it wasn’t Havili, it was running backs Stafon Johnson (144 yards on 11 carries) and C.J. Gable (69 yards on four carries).

“They did a very good job,” Callahan said. “Of course, they mixed in the play action with it and some timely calls, so that was a tough situation for us, especially when you have success throwing the ball. We have to get better.”

USC quarterback John David Booty’s arm will need no ice. Throwing the ball was hardly necessary, though he did it a few times just to show he could.

When it was over, the Trojans had racked up 313 of their 457 yards on the ground. They averaged 8.2 yards per rush.

It was a bitter pill for Husker fans who looked so forward to a shot at the top-ranked team on national television.

Early on, they had hope. Husker senior quarterback Sam Keller (36-of-54, 389 yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions) hit the Trojans with quick, short passes, helping the Huskers to 10-7 lead.

The game turned on the next kickoff. Vincent Joseph returned the ball to the 26, only to fumble it. The ball bounced right to teammate Malcolm Smith, who ran it to the Nebraska 45.

Joseph was hurt on the play and had to be taken off on a stretcher after a 10-minute delay. The Trojans were the aggressors from that point. They scored in five plays and didn’t bother looking back.

“There was a shift. It’s a game of momentum, let’s face it,” Callahan said. “It definitely swung in their favor in that instance, yeah. But we had time to recover. We felt coming out (from) the half we were still in this.”

But Keller threw interceptions on back-to-back possessions in the third quarter. USC scored touchdowns after both turnovers and the drama was zapped.

“Boom-boom. Two picks and they got momentum,” Keller said. “Two mistakes, probably the only two I made, but you can’t do that against those guys.”

Husker fans dreamed Friday night of rushing the field. By the end of the third quarter Saturday, several thousand had already rushed to the exits.

Keller said this one game is not going to wreck Nebraska’s season.

“We can take positives from this, guys,” he said. “No one is going in the tank. Nothing’s going to happen. We’re just going to go back, we’re going to fix it. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7439 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.