swiacy -
Your standard over-the-top Husker fans pretty much is entering the picture exactly as you said.
My immediate in-laws, who also live in Lincoln, are more respectful ... while not saying a word one way or another about Iowa, they are already whispering about the Huskers returning to the form of the their dynastic past.
The crux of things is that Bo Pelini is not speaking a lot more like Tom Osborne these days and the locals are absolutely eating it up. The very fact that Bo has stated that the 2010 D should be better than the 2009 D has Husker fans believing that as if it were gospel.
And, from my wife's (male) cousins ... they claim that the Huskers will walk all over Iowa. Of course, I think that a healthy dose of that is good old-fashioned smack-talk. However, considering that I'm not a smack-talker and that the jabs where unsolicited ... I'm inclined to think that they believe it for the most part.
Lastly, much of what I've heard about PSU has been rather respectful. A lot of what I hear is more about them thinking that PSU could end up eventually becoming a big rival for them. While few of them are truly dismissive of teams like PSU, Iowa, and Wisconsin ... I will agree that I'm under the impression that many Nebraska fans seem to think that things will be easier for them in the Big 10 than in the Big 12.