Joe Ganz threw for 510 yards and seven touchdowns to set school records and Nebraska scored on 11 straight possessions while ending a five-game losing streak with a 73-31 dismantling of Kansas State on Saturday.

Did Callahan run up the score?

“I didn’t think about the score,” he said. “We just kept playing.”

The Cornhuskers (5-6, 2-5 Big 12) bounced back from last week’s 76-39 humiliation at Kansas with their highest point total since Tom Osborne’s unbeaten 1997 national championship team hammered Iowa State 77-14.

“The guys are just sick of hearing about how bad we are, and we just came out and unleashed it,” Ganz said.

It was the Huskers’ first victory since they beat Iowa State on Sept. 29 and the first in four games since Osborne returned as interim athletic director. During their five-game losing streak the Huskers were outscored 226-88.

“We thought we forgot how to win,” said Cortney Grixby, who returned a kickoff 94 yards for Nebraska’s first touchdown. “Today we came out and everybody had a lot of enthusiasm and energy, and we got it back. We just remembered how to win and how to finish a football game.”

Yes, the Huskers finished. Even with a 52-10 lead, Callahan kept calling downfield pass plays, and he even went for it instead of punting on fourth-and-20 from the K-State 46.

Kansas State coach Ron Prince had no complaints about Callahan.

“It’s his job to coach his team,” Prince said. “It’s my job to try and stop him.”

Callahan and the Huskers had plenty of reason to take out some frustration.

Job security has been a question Callahan has had to answer almost daily since the Huskers began a freefall in October.

There also could be lingering bitterness about Prince swooping in and stealing away quarterback Josh Freeman after the Huskers had secured a verbal commitment from him two years ago.

And the awful loss at Kansas still was fresh in everyone’s memory.

Whether Callahan can save his job isn’t known, but he gave the old coach something to think about on a day the Huskers looked like the Osborne teams that routinely throttled K-State. Callahan even called an option play for Ganz.

Kansas State (5-5, 3-4) hadn’t given up so many points since a 75-28 defeat to Oklahoma in 1971.

“That was as thorough a defeat as we’ve had as a program and personally,” Prince said. “As a professional you expect better of yourself and those around you. Clearly the game got away from us.”

Nebraska’s maligned defense pressured Freeman all day, sacking him four times. The Wildcats had 428 yards, but most came after the game was out of hand.