The most popular legend of all..
By Chuck Green
Sports Editor___
Few legends are created overnight. Some take
decades, and a handful aren’t recognized until
they’re gone.
But what is possibly one of Nebraska’s greatest
legends took more than two-thirds of a century to
surface, and it’s far from gone.
It hasn’t even slowed down. If anything,
Nebraska’s greatest legend is more widely
recognized on a national level today than ever
before.
The legend is Comhusker football.
Few states, if any, can boast such an all
encompassing force as Nebraska can with its
college football program. Almost nowhere else
has such fervor and such nearly-unquestioning
support for a single sports team taken hold of a
state’s population, be it a collegiate or profes
sional team.
Some reasons for this are obvious. Nebraska
has no professional sports organizations, aside
from the Kansas City Royals’ farm baseball team
in Omaha. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is
the only m<yor Division I institution in the state,
and the coverage of Nebraska’s football program
by the state’s media would put a smile on the
face of even the most dour coach.
It’s no secret that most little boys in Nebraska
grow up dreaming of the day they strap on a
Husker helmet for the first time.
But like sc many popular aspects of today’s
world, it wasn’t always like this.
On Nov. 27, 1890, Nebraska had only been a
_ 1
part of the United States for about two decades. A
year earlier, a group of civil engineering students
laid out the first football field on a strip of land
just northwest of the campus. A challenge from
the University of South Dakota to a game of
football had to be declined because of an early
winter, but another game invitation would come
the next fall.
On that icy Thanksgiving Day 97 years ago,
Nebraska’s Old Gold Knights, as they were then
known, defeated the Omaha YMCA 10-0. A.N.
lioyer scored the university’s first touchdown,
which was then worth four points, and began a
state wide mania that to this day shows no signs
of decline.
In 1892, Nebraska teamed with Iowa, Kansas,
and Missouri to form the Interstate League. A
year later, the Bug Eaters, as Nebraska’s team
had then become known, began to pay their
coaches and charged a 25-cent admission to
games. In 1894, Nebraska won its first league
championship.
become a famed coach at Michigan, led Nebraska
to a 7-4 season. Two years later, Walter ‘‘Bummy’’
Booth guided the Big Eaters to a 7-1-1 season,
including a scoreless tie to the Kansas City
Medics. Nebraska didn’t allow points scored
against it in its first eight games until a season
ending loss to Minnesota.
That same year, a telegrapher at the Lincoln
Star Newspaper named Cy Sherman pointed out
that such an "up and coming" team deserved a
better name than the "Bug Eaters." Sherman
renamed the team as the Cornhuskers, and no
one has argued the title since.
Turner Gill — QB
1981-83
Johnny Rodgers — WB
1970-72
w .
Mike Rozier — IB
1981-83
In 1909, the Huskers set the all-time school
scoring record, blanking lowly Haskell College
119-0, and set a mannerism for Nebraska football
teams of the future.
Despite a few upset wins over Notre Dame’s
famed “Four Horsemen" teams of the 1920’s and
a showcasing of one of America’s finest coaches
of the future in D.X. Bible, Nebraska remained
“just another team" in the minds of many
national sports writers. The east coast was where
it was at, they argued, with the exception of
Stanford on the west coast. In 1941, when the
two teams met in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s
Day, the Huskers had something to prove.
Unfortunately for Nebraska, so did Stanford.
The No. 2-ranked Huskers were defeated 21-13
before the largest crowed ever to see a Nebraska
football game.
So began a difficult year for the Nebraska
football program. They started with a loss and
finished with the outbreak of World War II,
which ended the Huskers’ success for the next
20 years.
In 1962, following the departure of Bill
Jennings, Nebraska was in need of a coach.
Chancellor Cliff Hardin looked west to Wyoming
where he found a coach named Bob Devaney.
Devaney was hired and immediately began to
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In Devaney’s first game at Nebraska, the
Huskers rolled to a 53-0 win over South Dakota.
Eyebrows were raised across the nation the next
week when the Huskers upset a highly-ranked
Michigan team 25-13 in Lansing. Seven wins and
two losses later, Nebraska was in its first post
season bowl game since 1954, defeating Miami
36-34 in the short-lived Gotham Bowl in New
York.
In Devaney's second season at Nebraska, the
Huskers rolled up a 10-1 season which included a
win over Auburn in the Orange Bowl. In 1965,
Devaney led his team to a 10-0 regular season
before losing to Alabama 39-28 in what turned
out to be a national championship Orange Bowl
game.
Suddenly, NeDraska was no longer the butt of
college football jokes — the Huskers were for
real.
They were never more real, though, than at the
beginning of the 1970’s. In 1970, Nebraska
rebounded from a 21-21 tie to Southern California
in the season’s second game to win 10 straight,
including a 17-12 dogfight with Louisiana State
in the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day. But there
were still disbelievers, as made evident by the
No. 3 ranking given to Nebraska by the United
Press International post-season poll. In that
poll, Texas was crowned national champion and
Ohio State was voted runner up.
The 1971 Huskers, picked by most pre-season
college football polls to ascend to the college
football throne, went 12-0 during the regular
season. The year was highlighted by a 35-31 win
over Oklahoma in the Thanksgiving Day classic
that is considered by many to be the greatest
college football game ever played.
Following a 38-6 Orange Bowl victory over
Alabama, Nebraska finished first, followed by
Oklahoma, Colorado and Alabama. Not since has
any national championship team defeated the
second , third , and fourth ranked teams in the
nation.
In 1982, the 1971 Nebraska team was selected
by a national panel of sports writers as the
greatest college football team of all time.
Besides finishing No. 1 in the ratings, members
of Nebraska’s 1971 team held numerous other
honors. Defensive lineman Larry Jacobson was
awarded the Outland Trophy, given to the
nation’s best college interior lineman, and
middle guard Rich Glover won the John L. Young
Trophy for outstanding linemen. Both players
were finalists for the Lombardi Award, given to
the nation’s best college linemen or linebacker.
In addition Nebraska's 1971 team held and
extended the nation’s longest winning streak at
23 games and the longest unbeaten streak of 33
games.
The 1972 season opener against UCLA ended
both. Picked again by several pre season polls to
win the national championship, Nebraska trailed
10-0 at the end of the third quarter. The Huskers
tied the game, 17-17, with less than six minutes
left but then failed to move the ball on key
possessions after that. UCLA took over for one
final drive from its own 12 yard line and moved
the ball into field goal position. Efren Herrera
kicked the game winning field goal in the final
seconds to give Nebraska its first loss since the
fourth game of the 1969 season.
Nebraska finished the 1972 season with a 9 2 1
record, including a 40 6 win over Notre Dame in
the Orange Bowl. Despite what many Nebraskans
viewed as a disappointing season, the Huskers
swept the nation in individual honors. Wingback
Johnny Rodgers won the Heisman Trophy, given
to the nation’s best collegiate player. Glover won
the Outland and Lombardi Awards, and finished
third in the Heisman voting. Willie Harper was
voted as the Defensive Player of the Year by the
Pigskin Club of Washington, D.C. All three
players were consensus All-Americans. Never
before or since has a single team swept all
individual honors.
The one thing Nebraska fans will remember
the most about the season, though, was the
departure of Devaney from the coaching position.
Devaney, who posted a 101-20-2 record at Nebra
ska, resigned to become Nebraska’s athletic
director and hand picked an assistant coach
named Tom Osborne to be his successor. Osborne
had played football and basketball at Hastings
College and went on to play professional football
for the Washington Redskins and the San Fran
cisco 49'ers. His Nebraska coaching debut did
little to change his successful image.
Nebraska opened the 1973 season against
I’CLA, the team that had ended Devaney’s
winning streak a year earlier. But this time the
game was in Lincoln and a national television
audience saw a preview of things to come.
Osborne won the game 40-13 and finished his
first season with a 9-2-1 record. The season was
capped with a 19-3 upset victory over Texas in
the Cotton Bowl.
Osborne’s 1974 team finished with a 9-3
record. The next year, Nebraska went 10-2 and
after that, in 1976, the Buskers finished the
season with a 9-3-1 mark behind the throwing arm
of All-American quarterback Vince Ferragamo.
In 1977, Nebraska finished 9-3 again, with the
season highlighted by an upset win over Alabama
in Lincoln the week after the Huskers lost to
Washington State in the season opener.
In each of those years, one of Nebraska’s
losses was to Oklahoma. The Sooners have
remained a thorn in Osborne’s side to the
present, but in 1978, that changed — for a while.
The year started with a 20-3 loss to No. 1
ranked Alabama. After that, however, the Huskers
reeled off eight straight wins to set up the
annual Big Eight Conference showdown with
Oklahoma. The Sooners were undefeated and
rated No. 1, while Nebraska held an 8-1 record
and were ranked No. 4.
Rick Berns, Nebraska’s latest 1 back, rushed
for 113 yards and I-back l.M. Hipp, who split time
with Berns, scored two touchdowns. With Nebra
ska leading 1714, Oklahoma was driving for
what appeared to be a game winning score. W ith
3:27 left in the game, Heisman Trophy winner
Billy Sims took the ball, turned the comer for the
Sooners and was met by three Nebraska defend
ers. He was hit hard and fumbled the ball, which
was recovered by the Huskers, on the 3 yard line.
Nebraska ran out the clock and had defeated
Oklahoma for the first time since 1971.
Nebraska’s joy, however, was short lived.
One week later, with temperatures nearing
Russell Gary — CB
1978-80
the zero-degree mark, Nebraska lost to Missouri,
35-18, and finished the regular season with a 9-2
reeord. Because of their win, the Buskers had
wrapped up an Orange Bowl berth. After the loss
to Missouri, Osborne learned that his team
would again have to face Oklahoma, this time in
Miami. The Sooners won the rematch 31-24.
In 1980, Nebraska won the recruiting battle
for a highly-touted quarterback from Texas
named Turner Gill. Gill had narrowed his choices
of where he would play his college football to
Nebraska and Oklahoma. In 1981, against Colo
rado, Gill got his first start of his college career.
Behind Gill’s leadership, Nebraska crushed the
Buffs 59-0.
With Gill starting at quarterback, Nebraska
posted a 29-2 record. Many fans will argue that
that mark should really be 30-1.
In a nationally-televised game against Penn
State on Sept. 25,1982, Gill led the Buskers to a
touchdown with less than two minutes remaining
to give Nebraska a 24-20 lead, its first of the
game. But the Nittany Lions, led by quarterback
Todd Blackledge, drove to midfield with the final
seconds llCKing Oil Uie Clue*. uu muu uunn,
Blackledge fired a pass to tight end Mike
McCloskey at the 2-yard line. Television replays
showed that McClosky’s feet came down out of
bounds, but the officials ruled that he had drug
one foot inbounds. On the next play, Blackledge
completed a game-winning touchdown pass to
Kirk Bowman for the 27-24 win.
In 1983, Nebraska avenged its loss by beating
Penn State 44 6 in the first Kickoff Classic
enroute to a 12-0 regular season. The Huskers
possessed three top Heisman Trophy candidates
that season: I-back Mike Rozier, wingback Irving
Fryar, and Gill. Guard Dean Steinkuhler was
regarded as the nation’s top candidate for the
Outland and Lombardi Awards, which had been
won by Husker center Dave Rimington the year
before. Rozier won the Heisman, Steinkuhler
won the Outland, and Fryar was the first player
selected in the 1984 professional draft.
The team, regarded by some sports writers as
the greatest college football team of all time,
lost the Orange Bowl and the national champion
ship to Miami, 31-30, when a two-point conversion
pass from Gill to I back Jeff Smith failed. --'
Nebraska football teams since 1983’s have ^
appeared in New Year’s Day bowl games and [. I
have not finished outside of the post-season top
10. In fact, no Nebraska team has finished /
outside of the top 10 in at least one poll since 1
1969.
Some legends never die.
Rozl«r
Roger Craig — IB
1980-82
Vince Ferragamo — QB
1975-76
\
Jeff Quinn — QB
1978-80