1912 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team

1912 Nebraska Cornhuskers football
Nebraska state champion Missouri Valley co-champion
Conference	Big Eight Conference
1912 record	7–1 (2–0 MVIAA)
Head coach	Ewald O. Stiehm (2nd year)
Home stadium	Nebraska Field

The 1912 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team was the representative of the University of Nebraska in the 1912 college football season. The team was coached by Ewald O. Stiehm and played their home games at Nebraska Field in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Before the season

Coach Stiehm returned for his second year at Nebraska following a not-entirely satisfying 5-1-2 first season, though it had resulted in a shared conference championship for 1911. The roster was smaller than recent past years, down to just 15 players.

Schedule

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Roster

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Coaching staff

^[3][4]

Game notes

Bellevue

Nebraska started up coach Stiehm's second season by warming up against Bellevue, easily cruising to victory with 81-0 on the board in the last game between Bellevue and the Cornhuskers. These teams only met three times, and Nebraska was never scored upon while staying perfect and racking up a series scoring history against Bellevue of 184-0. ^[5]

Kansas State

In the second meeting of these teams, Kansas State managed to find the scoreboard against the Cornhuskers for the first time. The Aggies defense was successful in preventing big pass plays, however the 6 points put up by Kansas State did not accomplish much against the 30 scored by Nebraska through the running game. Nebraska stayed perfect in the series, 2-0, but lost several players due to injuries in the game. ^[5][6]

Minnesota

Minnesota apparently feared this game, having fared less than impressively to start their season, and not believing tales of injured Nebraska players. Indeed, as the game progressed, it appeared that favor might shine upon the Cornhuskers at last. Nebraska's defense held firm when Minnesota approached as close as the Nebraska 3, and despite some Cornhusker errors up to that point, both teams were scoreless at the half. To start the second half, Nebraska penalties pushed the Cornhusker defense back to their own 4 yard line, where Minnesota punched in a touchdown. Nebraska promptly answered right back, with a 72-yard run among other plays, to draw up to the Minnesota 3 yard line. While attempting to pass for the touchdown, where the point after would have given Nebraska the go-ahead points, the ball was instead intercepted and returned for a Minnesota touchdown, sealing the bitter outcome of the game for Nebraska. The Cornhuskers fell further behind in the series, to 1-10-1. ^[5][6][7]

Adrian

The team from Adrian, traveling to Lincoln all the way from Michigan for the one and only time these teams would meet, suffered to bear the brunt of Nebraska's disappointment after losing yet again to Minnesota the week prior. The Cornhuskers made easy work of Adrian with a routine shutout victory that warranted only a single sentence in the university's annual. ^[5][7]

Missouri

Missouri successfully fought off the Cornhuskers for quite some time, putting on a good game of defense with Nebraska. Finally, however, the Cornhuskers managed to put the ball over the goal line for a single touchdown, which was enough to carry the game. Nebraska's comfortable series lead was improved to 10-3.^[5][7]

Doane

Nebraska's oldest active series came to a close when Doane arrived in Lincoln for the last time. Severely overmatched for the past several years, shutout losses to the Cornhuskers were the normal outcome for the Doane squad. This year, however, Doane snapped a six-game shutout streak and put 6 points on the scoreboard while up against Nebraska reserves, but still lost 54-6. And so ended the Nebraska-Doane series, which dated to Nebraska's first season and second-ever game in 1890, with Nebraska firmly leading 16-2. The victory over Doane kept Nebraska undefeated against in-state teams for the second consecutive year, good for their ninth state championship. ^[5]

Kansas

Although Kansas had not impressed during the course of the season, they brought the fight to Lincoln and scored first, leading the Cornhuskers 3-0 for a significant amount of time. It took a long, 70-yard run for a touchdown to finally put Nebraska ahead after several miscues. A second touchdown finally put the game out of reach of the Jayhawks, and Nebraska edged further ahead in the series, to 11-8. ^[5][8]

Oklahoma

Oklahoma arrived in Lincoln for the first-ever match between these teams, in what would eventually go on to be one of the most storied rivalries in college football. Nebraska was the larger team, but the smaller Sooners proved themselves with superior speed, scoring first and putting the Cornhuskers on their heels. After the initial scare, Nebraska's defense came together to slow down the Sooners, who couldn't stop Nebraska from scoring 13 points of their own, and the series was begun with a Nebraska victory.^[5][9]

After the season

Suffering only the one loss to Minnesota, which was seemingly an annual event of frustration, Nebraska finished 7-1-0 (.875) and perfect in-conference with the victories over Kansas and Missouri. As a result, the Cornhuskers were awarded the sole conference championship, which was coach Stiehm's second, Nebraska's second in the Missouri Valley Conference, and the program's seventh conference title all-time. Coach Stiehm's career record improved to 12-2-2 (.813), and the program's overall record improved to 130-47-10 (.722), while the Cornhuskers improved their MVIAA conference record to 9-2-2 (.769).

References