1908 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team

1908 Nebraska Cornhuskers football
Conference Big Eight Conference
1908 record 7-2-1 (2-1-0 MVIAA)
Head coach William C. "King" Cole (2nd year)
Home stadium Antelope Field
1908 Missouri Valley football standings
Conf     Overall
Team W   L   T     W   L   T
Kansas † 4 – 0 – 0     9 – 0 – 0
Nebraska 2 – 1 – 0     7 – 2 – 1
Iowa State 2 – 1 – 0     6 – 3 – 0
Missouri 3 – 2 – 0     6 – 2 – 0
Drake 1 – 2 – 0     5 – 2 – 0
Washington (MO) 0 – 2 – 0     4 – 4 – 1
Iowa 0 – 4 – 0     2 – 5 – 0
† – Conference champion

The 1908 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team was the representative of the University of Nebraska in the 1908 college football season. The team was coached by William C. "King" Cole and played their home games at Antelope Field in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Before the season

Coach Cole brought his 8-2 record from 1907 with him into his second year at Nebraska. Plans were beginning to materialize to replace Antelope Field, and this season would feature a visit from legend-in-the-making Jim Thorpe.

Schedule

[1]

Date Opponent Site Result Attendance
September 26* Peru State Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska W 20-0 -
October 3* Doane Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska W 43-0 -
October 10* Grinnell Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska W 20-5 -
October 17* at Minnesota Northrop Field • Minneapolis, Minnesota T 0-0 -
October 24* Haskell Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska W 10-0 -
October 31 at Iowa Iowa City, Iowa W 11-8 -
November 7 vs. Iowa State Omaha, Nebraska W 23-17 -
November 14 Kansas Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska L 5-20 -
November 26* Wabash Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska W 27-6 -
December 2* Carlisle Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska L 6-37 2,000
*Non-Conference Game.

Roster

[2]

Beltzer, Oren HB
Bentley, Orlando QB
Birkner, Hugo HB
Bowers RG
Chaloupka, William T
Collins, Sydney C
Cooke, Harold QB
Ewing, Henry LG
Frum, Sidney RG
Harte, Louis T
Harvey, James E
Hascoll, Vincent QB
Johnson, Frank E
Kroger, Ernest FB
Matters, Thomas T
Miller, A.H. T
Minor, Harry HB
Perrin, Dale C
Slaughter HB
Sturmer, Frederick LT
Sturzenegger, Alfonzo HB
Temple, LeRoy FB
Wolcott, O.M. QB

Coaching staff

Name Title First year
in this position 		Years at Nebraska Alma Mater
William C. "King" ColeHead Coach19061906–1910Marietta
Jack BestTrainer18901890–1922

[3][4]

Game notes

Peru State

Peru State at Nebraska
1 2Total
Peru State 0
• Nebraska 20

Nebraska again opened the season against Peru State, and again made an easy win out of it, advancing their all-time record against the Peru State teachers to 2-0. [5][6]

Doane

Doane at Nebraska
1 2Total
Doane 0
• Nebraska 43
  • Date: 1908-10-03
  • Location: Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska

Nebraska committed numerous errors which prevented them from scoring as often as they could have, but it was just as well for Doane so that they didn't have an even more painful blanking than the 0-43 outcome. Doane fell further in the series to 2-12. [5][6]

Grinnell

Grinnell at Nebraska
1 2Total
Grinnell 5
• Nebraska 20
  • Date: 1908-10-10
  • Location: Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska

Long suffering from a lengthening string of Nebraska victories, Grinnell got the attention of the Cornhuskers by scoring first in this game. Nebraska responded by keeping them off the board for the rest of the game while attaching four of their own touchdowns to advance to 6-2 in the series. [5][6]

Minnesota

Nebraska at Minnesota
1 2Total
Nebraska 0 0 0
Minnesota 0 0 0

Nebraska once again traveled north to Minneapolis on another mission to attempt to take down the mighty Golden Gophers. Both teams made it a defensive game, with both sides making impressive goal line stands, and when time ran out there were still no points on the board. Holding Minnesota to a scoreless tie was still a big improvement to break the 4-game win streak held by Minnesota in the series, though it didn't contribute a great deal towards Nebraska making up their 1-6-1 series deficit. [5][6]

Haskell

Haskell at Nebraska
1 2Total
Haskell 0
• Nebraska 10
  • Date: 1908-10-24
  • Location: Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska

Nebraska didn't put up such a large score, but held Haskell to zero to notch up a 3rd shutout in the last four games, moving to 4-1 against the Indians. [5][6]

Iowa

Nebraska at Iowa
1 2Total
• Nebraska 11
Iowa 8

After a three-year break, Nebraska and Iowa resumed their series. Any thoughts of an easy Cornhusker victory to start the season's conference slate were quickly replaced by the reality of a struggle in which Nebraska barely escaped with a 3-point win, moving to a 7-4-2 advantage over the Hawkeyes all time. [5][6]

Iowa State

Nebraska vs. Iowa State
1 2Total
• Nebraska 23
Iowa State 17

For the second week in a row, the Cornhuskers found themselves fighting for the win against a team from Iowa. The Cyclones fought to a 17-17 tie in the 2nd half, but Nebraska found a way to score one more time to increase their series lead to 7-3. [5][6]

Kansas

Kansas at Nebraska
1 2Total
• Kansas 16 4 20
Nebraska 5 0 5
  • Date: 1908-11-14
  • Location: Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska

Nebraska players accused Kansas of spying on the team practices or otherwise improperly obtaining the signals called by the Cornhuskers, but whether that was true or Kansas was just that good, Nebraska fell at home 5-20 in a loss that handed the Jayhawks the conference championship and narrowed the Nebraska series edge to 8-7. The home defeat snapped an 11-game home field winning streak, and was the first since a 6-8 loss also delivered by Kansas in 1906. [5][6]

Wabash

Wabash at Nebraska
1 2Total
Wabash 6
• Nebraska 27
  • Date: 1908-11-26
  • Location: Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska
  • Game weather: Snow

This was the only time Wabash met Nebraska to settle affairs on the football field, and the muddy, snowy day was all Nebraska. Three Wabash errors each eventually resulted in Cornhusker touchdowns. [5][6]

Carlisle

Carlisle at Nebraska
1 2Total
• Carlisle 37
Nebraska 6
  • Date: 1908-12-02
  • Location: Antelope Field • Lincoln, Nebraska
  • Game attendance: 2,000

For the second week in a row, Nebraska met a team that it would only see one time in program history. This game was arranged to bring the heralded Jim Thorpe up against the Cornhuskers. Thorpe's Carlisle team certainly did not disappoint those who came to see impressive football being played. Although Thorpe reportedly struggled at times during the game, Carlisle still easily downed Nebraska in Lincoln 37-6. [5][6]

After the season

Coach Cole finished his second year with a Nebraska career total of 15-4-1 (.775), and the Cornhuskers program record again improved slightly to 108-41-6 (.716). Nebraska finished 2nd in the Missouri Valley Conference, and had an abbreviated two-year conference record of 3-1 (.750).

This was the last year Nebraska played home games at Antelope Field. Next season, the new Nebraska Field was built on campus, and was located adjacent to where Memorial Stadium sits today. Antelope Field was sent into the history books with an all-time Cornhusker football record of 64-8-2 (.878), including exhibition games.

References

  1. ↑ "Football - 1908 Schedule/Results". University of Nebraska-Lincoln Athletics Department. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
  2. ↑ "Nebraska Football 1908 Roster". University of Nebraska-Lincoln Athletics Department. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
  3. ↑ "Nebraska head coaches". HuskerMax. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
  4. ↑ "118 Years of Cornhusker Football". University of Nebraska Athletics Department. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-05-09. Retrieved 2009-11-14.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 "1908 Game Recaps". Husker Press Box. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 "the 1900s". HuskerMax. Retrieved 2009-11-15.