And it shows.

“You don’t know what you have until it’s real bullets flying,” Pelini said Tuesday. “At this point, I think I know how they’ll respond. But you don’t know.”

The Cornhuskers, who open at home against Western Michigan on Saturday, turned in a lackluster practice performance Monday. Pelini was downright cantankerous afterward, tersely answering 15 questions from reporters in a matter of two minutes.

“I didn’t mean to be grouchy,” Pelini said with a shrug at his Tuesday news conference.

He said his team isn’t ready to play a game.

“Not yet,” he said. “We’ve got some more days to practice. We’ll get ’em ready. There’s a lot more learning to do. We need to practice better than we did yesterday. We’ve got to familiarize ourselves more with our opponent. It’s a process, and we’re not quite there yet.

“If you ever ask me on Tuesday morning if you’re ready to play the game on Saturday, I’d say no. If you are, then we could just pack it in and let them go to school the rest of the week.”

Pelini, 40, is embarking on his first head coaching job. He was defensive coordinator at Nebraska in 2003 and, after Frank Solich’s firing, was interim head coach for an Alamo Bowl win over Michigan State.

Pelini, who interviewed for the head coaching job, went to Oklahoma as co-defensive coordinator after Nebraska hired Bill Callahan. Following a year with the Sooners, Pelini moved on to LSU as defensive coordinator.

Bill Callahan was fired after Nebraska’s 5-7 season in 2007. Pelini was hired to come back and rebuild the program, specifically the Huskers’ moribund defense.

Uncertainty looms, with three new starters at linebacker and two in the secondary.

Pelini said he’s looking for more consistency.

“You don’t walk into a game and change,” he said. “You just do what you do during the week over and over. But to do that, you have to practice the way you’re going to play. You can’t just flick a switch and get ready. You have to make the investment and do it during the week.”

Pelini has shown little in the way of good humor throughout preseason practice. He skipped a scheduled session with the media last week before snapping Monday.

“He probably hasn’t gotten a lot of sleep getting ready for the first game,” quarterback Joe Ganz said. “I’m sure he’s a little tired.”

With the players, Ganz said, Pelini has been generally good-natured.

“He’s not grouchy with us,” Ganz said. “I think maybe it’s a little bit of his personality. He just wants to think about football. I don’t think he likes having to deal with the obligations that come with being Nebraska’s head football coach. His gig is all football. That’s when he’s really at ease.”