I'm going to start with a defensive comparison, since that was the strength of this years team (2009). I have picked one team from each decade - 60s, 70s etc. Its a little hard to compare teams from so many years apart, with rule changes and different styles of play, but here is what I found.  All years include bowl games (except 1967 there wasn't one).  I hope I didn't make any errors and will triple check this soon, this was done late at night.

Some decades had several good defenses that could have been chosen. 2009 was easily  the best defense of the 2000s. 1994 and 1996 were a little better than 1995, but since 95 was one of the all time great NU teams I used them. One could also argue that the 95 squad probably had larger leads late in games which would mean more lower unit players could have played  and the opponents pass yardage and point totals would also be somewhat inflated.

One of the reasons I picked 1967 for the 60s was the fact that they had to endure 40 turnovers by the Husker Offense  in a 10 game regular season (no bowl that year), compared to 22 takeaways by the Husker D. 

 Its somewhat ironic that in 1983 the Huskers had one of the best offenses in the country but were a little short on defense and the next season they had one of the best defenses in the nation.     If you have any problems with the display, try zooming out or reducing print size.  I hope all the abbreviations are ok.  I still have to add where the various years and stats ranked nationally (if at all), and list All Conference and All American players.