Sunday, December 1, 1940
DAILY NEBRASKAN
By Chris Petersen.
A great Nebraska football team con
cluded their season yesterday, a season of
thrills topped with victory, a season that
will probably place them among the five
top teams in the nation.
Thirteen seniors played their last fame
yesterday, leaving behind them a trail of
gridiron glory, a trail not marked by one
outstanding man but rather one which
marks them as a group, as a real team.
And they leave behind them another
team, potentially as great as their own;
for their play during the last three years
has been integrated with that of juniors
and sophomores. And those who are open
to greatness learn what makes that great
ness. It is the team, the coach, and school
support that deserve credit not for credit's
sake but credit built upon the season.
It was on Oct. 5 that two of the "mid
west's always good" teams met in Min
neapolis to do battle. Minnesota's Gophers,
now the No. 1 team in the nation edged
out a 13-7 win over the Huskers that aft
ernoon. But it was not a disappointed team
that returned to Lincoln for they knew
that they had played the toughest team
in the nation- knew that in one sense of
the word they had won a moral victory
for "Butch" Luther had scampered 65
yards in the third quarter to score only
to have it discounted by a heart-breaking
penaltyTPerhaps that score would have
meant a tie or maybe even victory for the
Huskers.
And then out of Indiana came the Hoosi
era, not an ordinary team, to go down
before the Husker machine 13-7 as Hopp
and Rohrig flipped passes for the Huskers'
first win of the season. It was after this
game, that Sports Editor Jim Evinger of
the DAILY in his column said, "We don't
know where we're going, but we're going."
It was in that game that Nebraska fans
began to realize that it was going to be
Ed Schwartzkopf who would be in on the
bottom of most of the tackles during tho
season and that Prochaska, wh6 caught
one of the touchdown passes, was not just
another end.
At Kansas, the KU Jayhawks gave way
Huskers. The ball started rolling in Ne
braska's favor early in the game when
Forrest Behm and Ray Prochaska blocked
a punt on the Kansas 8-yard marker. Vike
Francis plunged it over from there. Wayne
Blue got the second tally only to repeat
for six points a few minutes later.
Harry Hopp "powered" over the goal to
be followed by Petsch who fell on a fum
bled Kansas ball behind the goal line for
an additional score. Blue cracked over for
the sixth touchdown while Bradley fol
lowed him a few minutes later with sev
enth scoring honors. Henry Rohn added
seven points to his individual scoring rec
ord a few minutes later when he carried
the ball over and kicked the extra point.
And calling signals like the coaches
think them were Petsch and Theos Thomp
son. And at the Homecoming game, old grads
came back to see their team "cook with
gas." The Missouri Tiger and its cub, the
great Paul Christman, were put in the
broiling pot to be cooked to the tune of
20-7 as 37,000 fans squeezed into the
stadium.
There's an old axiom that too many
cooks spoil the broth but the numerous
chefs that trotted out on the field that day
for the Huskers brewed a dandy pot of
victory broth. The Huskers, as a unit, com
bined running power and scoring punch via
the air lanes to sink the Tiger hopes of
repeating as conference championship
holders.
Roy "Cowboy" Petsch scampered 53
yards for the first tally, while Hopp and
Rohrig passed to Luther for the second
and third set of six points after Francis
and Hopp had worked the ball up the field.
Then came the Oklahoma game. Okla
homa, one of the big guns in the confer
ence race, went down before the Huskers
13-0. And it was Nebraska who remained
as the only undefeated team in Big Six
conference play.
It was big Royal Kahler and Warren
Alfson who were making the holes for the
gains and scores. And it was there that
Quarterback Petsch pulled the famous cen
ter around play from his bag of tricks.
It was Nebraska's last big hurdle in the
winning of the conference that was beaten
down at Norman, Okla., that afternoon.
And it was after that game in the Soon
er dressing room that Mitchell Shadid, who
played a whale of a game for the Sooners,
said, "I heard Nebraska had an All-Amer-ican,
but I got mixed up on which one it
was." And that's the way the team worked
all season, not as separate units but as
one unit.
It was a tilt of sheer power and team
work when Nebraska met the Iowa Hawk
eyes on home sod to beat them by a score
of 14-6. The Huskers led all during the
game but the Hawkeyes were no pushovers.
It was after that game that Nebraska
fans began to sit up and take notice that
they had a great team that wa3 steadily
climbing towards the top among the best
teams of the nation. And it was not long
after this game that someone got the idea
that Nebraska should be one of the lead
ing contenders for a bowl bid.
At Pittsburgh, Nebraska's fighting band
of Cornhuskers fought fire with fire in
turning back the inspired Panthers, 9-7,
in one of the most thrilling games of tha
season.
A field goal In the third period by Vlke
Francis gave the Huskers a precious three
point lead. Harry Hopp, in one of the best
games of his career had scored six points
earlier in the game. Perhaps one of the
outstanding plays was that of Clarence
Herndon when he slashed through the Pitt
secondary to block an attempted field goal
in the last few seconds of the game.
Iowa Cyclones blew into Cornhusker
Land to give the Scarlet and Cream one
of the big scares of the season when they
led at the half by a score of 12-0. But it
was an inspired eleven that came back on
that field in the second half with a smooth
running machine that changed the score
to 21-12. And it was a great line that
Francis, Hopp, and Luther scored behind,
a fighting line with every one from Center
Burruss to Ends Prochaska and Preston.
And yesterday, the Kansas Aggies went
to the chopping board before the axe of
the Husker eleven. And it was in a blaze
of glory from good playing and teamwork
plus the best form of sportsmanship that
this team, our team, shall go down in the
annals of Nebraska football history.
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