In MSU’s last trip to Memorial Stadium in 2011, the eventual Big Ten silver medalists led by Kirk Cousins were overwhelmed by the sellout crowd and held to a single field goal in the loss.

MSU (9-1 overall, 6-0 Big Ten) found out early on it didn’t have to be flawless – Nebraska’s (7-3, 4-2) offense piled up enough self-inflicted wounds. The Cornhuskers turned the ball over three times in the first quarter alone – they gave up five turnovers on the night – all in their own territory, yet the Spartans’ led by just three points.

“It’s the mindset, first of all,” head coach Mark Dantonio said of the difference in preparation this time around.

“Everybody was saying how nice the fans were. Well they’re always gonna be nice when they’re beating up on you. There were plenty of boos out there today, which was – hey, that was great. I just think our football team grew from that last experience here, like you usually do.”

Nebraska was polite enough to keep saying “You take it, I insist,” but MSU returned the kindness by building just a 20-7 halftime lead despite four turnovers in hand. The Spartans could have slammed the door shut by halftime, but a pair of drives stalled at the Nebraska 28- and 8-yard line resulting in field goals.

Perhaps most surprising was MSU’s defense being uncharacteristically gashed for 392 total yards. Nebraska was the first team to post 100 rushing yards on the Spartans (182) this year and standout running back Ameer Abdullah became the first individual player to do it with 123 on the ground.

“I think if you go in that locker room right now there’s a lot of happy guys, there’s a lot of guys that are happy we won but there’s some guys that are not necessarily pumped about our performance, especially on defense,” senior linebacker Max Bullough said. “We’re not gonna ignore the elephant in the room, we didn’t play as well as we wanted to. They did some things – they made some plays on us, and they have (before).”

Sophomore quarterback Connor Cook wasn’t perfect, but he made some eye-popping throws when the chips were down and finished with 193 passing yards. For every highlight throw Cook made Saturday, there were an equal amount of highlight grabs by his receivers, namely sophomore Macgarrett Kings Jr., junior Tony Lippett and senior Bennie Fowler.

The play-calling wasn’t spotless, either, with a trick play backfiring in the red zone and a few head-scratching run plays. Junior running back Jeremy Langford continued his hot streak with 151 rushing yards, including another breakaway touchdown to seal the game similar to his dagger to the Wolverines two weeks ago.

The point is MSU conquered its final demon in the Big Ten in front of 90,000 raucous fans, 99 percent of which were decked out in red, while playing far from its best football.

“It’s a credit to them, but we’re happy that we’re winning those types of games,” Bullough said. “We’d rather be sitting here talking about what we can fix while we’re in the winning column.”

Dantonio now has led the Spartans to victories in every Big Ten arena.

Unless you count Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium, site of the Big Ten Championship. With this monumental win, he’s poised for a chance to check that off the list, too.