"Among the most popular of athletic sports in this great dispensary of knowledge is foot-ball. (The) boys are so energetic that they have started a foot-ball team. The meds. are great on foot-ball. But there are not enough of each school to form a team of their own, and they could not agree together, so they had hard times..."The Sombrero (UNL Yearbook) - 1884

Long before 76,000 would gather in Lincoln, long before the attention of the media worldwide would focus on Nebraska, long before the sport of football became a business, the game was capturing attention on the campus of the University of Nebraska.

The odd game developed it's roots in 1869 when a group of Princeton students and their counterparts at Rutgers battled in a kind of hybrid of rugby and soccer. The sport quickly spread Easterly where boys and men were searching for an activity to fill the long winter months. The undergraduate newspaper at Nebraska quickly got on the bandwagon in 1883 supporting the formation of a school team in an effort to "...generate enough enthusiasm to designate ours a real college." The pleas fell to no avail as the game remained unorganised at the University of Nebraska for several years. Students at the various University schools pulled together rag-tag bands of participants but none were good enough, or numerous enough to be called a real team.

The first sign of football life at Nebraska occurred when the civil engineering students took matters into their own hands and layed-out a football field in 1889. The students finally had a place to play the game. The only problem now was. they still lacked anyone to oversee the creation of a real team. That all changed in 1890 thanks to the arrival of an Ivy League teacher named Dr. Langdon Frothingham.

Frothingham could hardly be considered the father of football at Nebraska. In fact his greatest qualification for the job was that he owned a football and knew the game. Nevertheless Frothingham arrived at the University from Harvard at the dawn of the decade to teach agriculture and bacteriology, and, although he didn't know it at the time, to coach the University of Nebraska football team. "Nothing would have come of our desire to play football if Dr. Frothingham hadn't joined the faculty" stated Nebraska's first team captain Ebenezer Mockett. "We had read about what they were doing at Harvard and Yale, and among ourselves we tried to put what we had read into practice. But we didn't know enough. We asked Dr. Frothingham to help. He was enthusiastic. And so were we as we got ready for that very first of all contests, with the Omaha YMCA."

The stage was set on Thanksgiving Day 1890. The boys from the Omaha YMCA Athletic club agreed to challenge the Nebraska "Old Gold Knights" as they were called. Ebenezer Mockett would line up at left back, E. Girard would handle the quarterback duties Morrow at fullback and J.H. Johnston at left back. The line consisted of C. M. Skiles at right end, Charles Chandler at left tackle, Fred Hyde at right guard, A. M. Anderson at snapback, Stockton at left guard, J.C. Porterfield at left tackle and L. E. Troyer at left end. Several hundred fans were on hand to see the Nebraska squad prevail on that fateful day 10-0. "The Lincoln boys had the better teamwork and the locals had the better individual players, who failed to play into each other's hands" wrote the Omaha newspaper. Regardless of the reasons, the Nebraska boys had won the football game. And the curtain had been raised on a tradition.

That same Nebraska squad would play another game early in the following year. The boys traveled to Crete to play Doane on February 14th of 1891. Dr. Frothingham was forced to coach the game on crutches as he had broken his leg during a scrimmage. Nebraska won that game 18-0, completing their first "season" undefeated and unscored upon.

Dr. Frothingham returned to Harvard the next fall leaving the Nebraska team without a coach, but not without the spirit to keep football alive at the school.

With Mockett leading the team, they began the search for opponents to play. Doane was willing to play, but other that teams were hard to find. Nebraska held their first home game on October 31, 1891 when Doane stopped by Lincoln. Once again Nebraska downed the Crete boys 28-4. With no one else to play the two teams met again two weeks later in Crete, and the strangest things happened, Nebraska lost 12-14. For the first time in their short history the Nebraska football team fell to an opponent. Following the game the undergraduate newspaper rationalized that it was "probably better not to win all the time." The experience, however, gave them the confidence to play with the bigger boys. A call was made to the University of Iowa. "Would they be interested in a game...and by the way, can we borrow a coach?" Since Nebraska was still playing without a coach Iowa took the bold measure of lending one of their faculty, T. U. Lyman, to help prepare the team for a game against Iowa's eleven. Two thousand-five hundered fans jammed in to witness the Golden Knights of Nebraska take on Iowa. Lyman returned to his own team in time to guide the Iowans to a 22-0 victory over Nebraska. The Nebraska squad played one more game that year, a 32-0 win over the now familiar Doane team, before setting their sites on bigger things for 1892.

The Nebraska football team had gained a lot of confidence in their first two years. There was some measure of stability despite the loss of their coach after the first season. Almost all of the players from the 1890 squad returned for the second season. And they won some games. Perhaps it was time to turn the team into a legitimate team. They did just that on December 28, 1891 when they helped form the first football conference in the plains, The Western Inter-State University Foot Ball Association, along with the Universities of Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. The new conference gave them, among other things, a real schedule of opponents and hopefully the clout to hire a full time coach.

Omaha attorney J. S. Williams was secured as the team's coach for 1892 and Charles Thomas was brought on board as the team's first assistant coach amid much enthusiasm and the players showed good talent, including quarterback E. O. Pace, halfback J. H. Johnston and one of the first black players at a major University, George Flippin.

Flippin was a 200 pound back who studied medicine at the literary society. After his school days Flippin returned to his home of Stromsburg, Nebraska to help build that town's first hospital.

The Nebraska Rattlesnake Boys, as they were sometimes known as, opened the season against the powerful University of Illinois. That game marked a turning point for the Nebraska program as it resulted in the team's first win over a major university. Nebraska's only score in the game came as a result of a turnover. Illinois fumbled and Nebraska's Flippin recovered. Flippin later scored the game's only touchdown and giving Nebraska the 6-0 win. Soon after the game, Nebraska's hopes of a full time coach were dashed when Williams left the post. Behind captain Johnston and team manager C. D. Chandler the team persevered.

Denver Athletic Club hosted the next game against Nebraska and posted a 18-4 victory over the Lincolnites. Nebraska's next game was to be their first against a conference opponent, but prejudices got in the way.

The University of Missouri refused to take the field against Nebraska in protest of the presence of a black player on the roster. Nebraska was awarded a 1-0 forfeit. The Missouri walk-out prompted the league to establish rules against refusing to play scheduled matches. Nebraska went on to lose to Kansas, 0-12, and tie Iowa 10-10, and earning second place in the new conference.

The lack of a head coach continued to eat at the heart of the school. "We are thoroughly disgusted with the cheap-John plan of amateur coaches" ranted the University newspaper. To rectify the problem the University finally secured their first salaried head coach for the 1893 campaign, Frank Crawford. A graduate student from Yale, Crawford was hired for a stipend of $500 in cash and tuition. There was something else new at Nebraska football games, admission charges. Starting in 1893 fans wishing to watch the contest had to pay 25 cents to get in.

The short Crawford era at Nebraska started out well enough. A 28-0 win over Doane and a 10-10 tie against Baker were followed by a forfeit victory over Denver. Things slowed down once the conference games began as losses to Missouri and Kansas put Nebraska in a hole, with powerhouse Iowa still to play. Nebraska did everything they could to defeat the Iowa team, even going so far as to insert coach Crawford at halfback. Their efforts paid off with a 20-18 upset win during a driving blizzard. The win sparked the ironic headline in the school paper: "We Have Met The Cornhuskers And They Are Ours." The Cornhusker reference was used as a term of disgust for the Iowa team.

The joy of the big win over Iowa spilled over into 1894 as the University students agreed to help cover the deficit needed to retain coach Crawford for a second year at the helm. Behind star halfback Flippin, captain and left guard W. W. Wilson and quarterback E. O. Pace, the 1894 NU squad set their sites on a conference pennant and a full eight game schedule.

Nebraska secured an exhibition win over Lincoln High and followed it with a 22-0 win over Grinnell. A pair of losses to Doane and Missouri were quickly followed by five straight wins, including a 36-0 conference win over Iowa. The team's 2-1 Western Inter-State Foot Ball Association record (6-2 overall) was enough to earn the school their first ever conference pennant. Football had finally captured the heart of Nebraskans. The team was winning and the fans were rooting. The team still, however, had no formal team nickname (Cornhuskers would not be adopted until after the turn of the century). The Nebraska boys were called the Red Stockings, Antelopes, and even Bug-eaters (an insect eating bat common on the plains). It is important to note, however, that by this time the team had already taken to wearing the colors of scarlet and cream.

Battling For Respect (1895-1897)

The revolving door of Nebraska head coaches continued in the 1895 season. Frank Crawford left Nebraska for the University of Texas following the 1894 season, leaving assistant coach Charles Thomas to guide the team. Thomas was a Michigan grad who already earned the status as the closest thing Nebraska had to stable coaching. Thomas had been an assistant at the University since 1892.

Under Thomas the Nebraska team undertook their most ambitious schedule to date. Nine games, including their first long distance road trip to Butte, Montana for the second game of the year. School administrators raised a ruckus over the Butte trip, expressing concern over the amount of time such a trip would take away from studies. To put a further cloud on the trip, Nebraska lost the game against the local athletic club 16-6. The loss did not dampen the teams spirits too much. The Nebraska squad was able to roll up wins against Sioux City, Denver, Omaha University Club and Doane, as well as conference foes Missouri and Iowa. For the second year in a row Nebraska finished the season in a first place tie for the league pennant.

The University of Nebraska made another attempt to stabilize the coaching ranks in 1896 by bringing E. N. Robinson in from Brown University to lead the squad. Robinson's arribval was met with little enthusiasm. The Lincoln newspapers went so far as to call Robinson's hiring "unfortunate." One of Robinson's first moves was to force his players to undergo mandatory physical examinations. His efforts paid some dividends with the team winning six of their ten games, while losing one and tying one. The disappointment came from the fact that both the loss and the tie came against league competition, meaning Nebraska would have to settle for third place in the Western Inter-State Foot Ball Association in 1896.

Football across the state of Nebraska underwent some tense moments in 1897. Reacting to the death of a Doane College player from football activities, the Nebraska legislature began measures to ban the sport. Heated debate grew between supporters and those who saw the game as barbaric. The loyalties of the fans (and not coincidentally their constituents) lead the legislature to quickly dismiss the idea of the ban.

The 1897 edition of the Nebraska football team one of their better efforts to date. Behind quarterback H.G. Cowgill the team stormed to a 5 wins and one loss. Among the five wins were four shutout victories earning the school their first outright league championship. The biggest game of the year also proved to be a controversial one. Nebraska welcomed Kansas to town for a mid-November contest. Kansas was heavily favored by the bettors. Nebraska fullback George Shedd took the spotlight that afternoon, running for a touchdown and kicking a goal. Kansas bounced back with a touchdown and placement kicking making the score 6-5 in favor of Nebraska. As nightfall decended upon the field a touchdown came under dispute. The debate over the score lasted so long that the game had to be called due to darkness. The game left bitter feelings on bold sides of the border.

The Nebraska Football squad raised their hopes to a higher level as the 1898 season approached. Not only were they riding the wave of their first-ever championship, they had also brought a promising young coach on board.

Fielding H. Yost came to Nebraska from Lafayette and was a student of the powerful East Coast football philosophy and a stern disciplinarian. Known as "Hurry-up" was actually not Nebraska's first choice for the coaching job, but he quickly proved his worth. Yost's boys came out of the blocks in impressive style, winning their first six games and out scoring their opponents 226-16. The team's first lost was a crushing 24-0 thumping by the KC Medics squad. The woes held over to the following week with a one point loss at the hands of Drake.

The team rebounded with wins over Colorado and an upset triumph over the bigger and stronger Denver Athletic Club that the NU faculty referred to as "a gang of pros."

The 1898 season was capped off with a "winner-take-all" Thanksgiving Day game against conference foe Iowa. The game started under controversy as the Iowa team showed up late, forcing the kickoff to be delayed several hours. The teams battled as night fell on the field. Iowa had taken a late 6-5 lead. Then, as the Nebraska team engineered a final drive, the officials called the game due to darkness and awarded the win to Iowa.

Yost left Nebraska after only one season, but did not leave the game of football. He went on to coach at Kansas, lead Michigan to a National Championship in 1901 and was eventually inducted into the College Football Hall Of Fame.

Despite the let down of 1899 the Nebraska football program was well underway and the stage was set for the glories to come. Over the next ten years the Nebraska squad would go 77-20-4, including 24 game winning streak. From there would come victories over previously unbeatable Notre Dame in the 1920's; National Championships in the 1970's and 1990's; and a tradition of football greatness that all started with a faculty member and twelve students on a cold Thanksgiving Day in 1890.