Nebraska Cornhuskers Football: A Coaching Legacy

The Nebraska Cornhuskers football program, representing the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, boasts a rich and storied history dating back to 1890. As a member of the Big Ten Conference in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, Nebraska is one of the most successful programs in college football history. This article explores the program's coaching lineage, highlighting key figures and their contributions to the Cornhuskers' enduring legacy.

From its humble beginnings as the "Old Gold Knights," "Antelopes," "Rattlesnake Boys," and even the "Bugeaters," the team adopted the iconic "Cornhuskers" nickname in 1900, marking the beginning of a new era. Over 120 seasons, the Cornhuskers have played 1,219 games, showcasing their consistent presence in college football.

Early Coaching Era (1893-1961)

The university recognizes Frank Crawford, hired in 1893, as its first official head coach. NU's earliest coaching history is unclear, as several men were appointed to assist or oversee the young program in an unofficial capacity. Early in the twentieth century, Nebraska became a regional power under Walter C. Booth - during a twenty-four-game win streak from 1901 to 1904, it was written that Booth could "weep with Alexander the Great because there are no more teams to conquer," given Nebraska's difficulty finding competitive and willing opposition in the Midwest. Twenty-four-year-old Ewald O. "Jumbo" Stiehm was hired in 1911 as the school's first full-time coach. Stiehm's impact was immediate, leading the team to unprecedented success and setting the stage for future triumphs. A team-record 34 game unbeaten streak, marshaled by Coach Ewald O. “Jumbo” Stiehm, began on Oct. 20, 1912, with a 41-0 win over Adrian College and ended Nov. 18, 1916, with a 7-3 loss to Kansas. NU was 28-0-2 at Nebraska Field under Jumbo Stiehm, who was subject to such frequent outbursts that the school established a women's sitting section far from the home sideline.

Dana X. Bible and Biff Jones further solidified Nebraska's standing, guiding the team to eight conference championships in the 1920s and 1930s. Jones also led the program to its first bowl game appearance. Nebraska handed the fabled Four Horseman of Notre Dame their only career losses in 1922 and 1923. The latter year also witnessed the opening of Nebraska Football’s new home. On October 6th, the Cornhuskers shellacked the visiting Oklahoma Sooners 24-0, in their debut at Memorial Stadium.

World War II impacted Nebraska Football in a particularly negative way. The University did not offer any military officer training programs. Many prominent college football schools had these programs and benefited greatly because of them. Nebraska had to draw its football talent from those men that were unfit for military duty. The Cornhuskers suffered a drop-off in talent and the start of a head coach revolving door scenario.

Under Coach Bill Glassford (1949-55) the University began offering athletic scholarships to its football team members, a practice that other schools had been doing for decades. The Cornhusker teams fortunes improved during Coach Glassford’s tenure, but not enough to overcome his strife with some players and boosters. Former Oklahoma assistant coach Bill Jennings took the Husker Head Coach position in 1957. He won a number of games against opponents that were prohibitive favorites, including the 1959 Halloween afternoon toppling of Oklahoma that ended the Sooner’s 74 conference game winning streak. However, he suffered some head-scratching defeats to teams that were inferior to his Cornhuskers.

The Bob Devaney Era (1962-1972): A National Powerhouse

Seven head coaches had little success in the postwar years until Bob Devaney was hired in 1962. Devaney turned Nebraska into a national power by the end of the decade, winning national championships in 1970 and 1971. In 1962, Coach Bob Devaney was hired away from the University of Wyoming as the replacement for Coach Jennings. He immediately took advantage of Coach Jennings ability to recruit outstanding talent. His first Cornhusker squad conquered perennial power Michigan in route to a 1962 Gotham Bowl victory. Coach Devaney won four consecutive Big-8 Championships from 1963 through 1966. Each of those teams was in hunt for the National Championship. The Cornhuskers hit a bit of a rut the following two years. However, they bounced-back in fine fashion to win four more Big 8 Conference titles from 1969-72, and the 1970 and 1971 National Championships. Coach Devaney retired at the conclusion of the 1972 season after posting a 101-20-2 record at Nebraska.

Nebraska's first titles came less than a decade into Bob Devaney's tenure. Devaney used a quarterback rotation between Jerry Tagge and Van Brownson throughout 1970, and the two led NU to nine consecutive wins after a tie at USC. Late-season losses by Texas, Ohio State, and Notre Dame allowed Nebraska to claim the national title with an Orange Bowl win over LSU. Trailing 12-10 in the fourth quarter, Tagge led a sixty-seven-yard drive to give NU a lead it would not relinquish. With Tagge as the unquestioned starter, Nebraska spent most of 1971 as the country's number-one team, winning each of its first eleven games by at least twenty-four points to set up a Thanksgiving Day meeting with No. 2 Oklahoma. The headline matchup of "The Game of the Century" was Nebraska's defense (allowing 6.4 points per game) against Oklahoma's wishbone offense (scoring 44.6 points per game). Nebraska's 35-31 victory was viewed by fifty-five million people in the United States, the largest college football audience ever. NU beat Alabama 38-6 in the Orange Bowl to defend its national title, becoming the first champion to defeat the No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4 finishers in the AP poll.

The Tom Osborne Era (1973-1997): Sustained Excellence

Offensive coordinator Tom Osborne succeeded Devaney in 1973, beginning a twenty-five-year tenure that established him as one of college football's greatest coaches. In 1973, Tom Osborne, Nebraska Football Assistant Coach (1962-72), ascended to the Nebraska Head Coach position and began a 25-year career that concluded in 1997. Coach Osborne marshaled his football charges to the 1994, 1995 and 1997 National Championships,13 conference titles and garnered 25 consecutive post-season bowl appearances. Coach Osborne reached 200 and 250 wins faster than any coach in college football history. His 60-3 record in his final five years is the most wins by any college football team in that amount of time. Coach Osborne’s over-all record at Nebraska is 255-49-3.

Despite remarkable consistency - Osborne's teams never won fewer than nine games and were nationally ranked for 304 of his 307 games - he did not break through and win a major-poll national championship until 1994. After twenty years of close calls and a last-second title game loss in 1993, Tom Osborne entered the 1994 season still seeking his first consensus national championship as a head coach. Star quarterback Tommie Frazier was ruled out indefinitely in September and backup Brook Berringer led Nebraska through most of an undefeated regular season, including a 24-7 win over No. 2 Colorado. Frazier returned to start the 1995 Orange Bowl against Miami; a pair of fourth-quarter Cory Schlesinger touchdowns against a worn-down Hurricanes defensive front gave Osborne his first consensus title.

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Frazier and freshman I-back Ahman Green led NU through a turbulent 1995 season, defeating three top-ten opponents in a four-week stretch by an average of 28.3 points. Nebraska opened 1997 outside the national top five, but quarterback Scott Frost weathered early-season struggles to lead NU to a win at second-ranked Washington. The Cornhuskers were not tested until a November trip to Columbia - No. 1 Nebraska beat Missouri in overtime after a game-tying touchdown that was deflected in the end zone (the "Flea Kicker"), but dropped in the AP and Coaches polls. A month later Nebraska beat Texas A&M 54-15 for its first Big 12 title. NU still trailed Michigan in both polls, but its Orange Bowl matchup with Tennessee was the designated Bowl Alliance national championship game.

Osborne's emphasis on strength, conditioning, and nutrition, coupled with his innovative I-formation offense, revolutionized the game and cemented his place among the coaching elite.

The Post-Osborne Era (1998-Present): Navigating Change

Coach Osborne’s replacement also served as a Nebraska assistant coach (1979-97) and played for Coach Bob Devaney (1962-65), garnering All-Big 8 status at the fullback position in 1965. Frank Solich succeeded Coach Osborne as Cornhusker Head Coach in 1998. Solich was named Tom Osborne's successor on Dec. 10, 1997. Solich was a part of the NU coaching staff for 25 years. He guided NU to a 12-1 record, Big 12 Championship and No. 2 final ranking in the coaches poll in 1999. In 2001, Solich led the Huskers to an 11-2 record and an appearance in the BCS title game in the Rose Bowl. In 2003, Solich coached Nebraska to a 9-3 regular-season record, but did not coach NU in the Alamo Bowl, as defensive coordinator Bo Pelini served as interim head coach.

CoachSolich had a 58-19 record during a 1998-2003 tenure as the head coach. His 1999 team won Nebraska’s last conference title. Solich took Nebraska to the 2002 BCS National Championship Game, but dropped to 7-7 the next year and was fired in 2003.

Bill Callahan followed Coach Solich as Head Coach. He was at the Husker helm from 2004-2007, guiding the 2006 Cornhusker squad to the Big 12 Runner-up position. After a lengthy coaching search, Nebraska settled on Bill Callahan, who overhauled the program in four turbulent years before being fired in 2007 and replaced by Bo Pelini. Coach Callahan’s Nebraska coaching record was 27-22.

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Bo Pelini, a former Ohio State Buckeye safety, took over the Nebraska Football reigns in 2008. Bo Pelini, hired after the 2007 season, is the current head coach of the Cornhuskers. His teams posted a very respectable 67-27 during his seven-year term as head coach.

Former Alabama quarterback Mike Riley succeeded Bo Pelini as Nebraska Head Football Coach and held the position from 2015 to 2017. His win-loss tally at Nebraska was 19-19.

Another former quarterback presently guides the Cornhuskers as the Nebraska Head Coach. Scott is the son of former Nebraska wingback Larry Frost (1966-69). Scott played quarterback for the Cornhuskers in 1996-97, and led the 1997 team to its fifth National Championship. Scott Frost's tenure as head coach concluded after a period of struggles, and the program is currently under the leadership of Matt Rhule.

Conference Championships and Bowl Games

Nebraska has won forty-six conference championships, second-most of any FBS school. The earliest came in the short-lived Western Interstate University Football Association, one of college football's first conferences, which NU participated in for six seasons with Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. The conference dissolved in 1897 and NU spent the next decade as an independent until the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association was founded in 1907. Nebraska dominated the MVIAA in its early years, winning twenty-one titles before 1940 despite playing several seasons as an independent. Devaney was hired in 1962 and quickly ended Nebraska's drought, winning eight titles in eleven years as head coach. Nebraska won ten division championships. Nine were in the Big 12's North Division, which NU played in from the Big 12's inception in 1996 until departing for the Big Ten in 2011 (the Big Eight never used divisions).

In 1915, Nebraska was invited to face Northwest Conference champion Washington State in the second bowl game ever played, but university officials balked at the cost of sending the team to Pasadena and declined. NU played its first bowl game in the 1941 Rose Bowl, losing to eventual national champion Stanford. Bob Devaney's inaugural season ended with the first bowl victory in program history, a 36-34 win over Miami in the 1962 Gotham Bowl. Three years later, he took Nebraska to its first national championship game (though it was not yet an official designation) against Alabama in the 1966 Orange Bowl; Bear Bryant's Crimson Tide won 39-28 in the first of three bowl meetings between the coaches. Nebraska did not appear in a bowl game in 1967 or 1968, but returned to postseason play in 1969 and began an NCAA-record streak of thirty-five consecutive seasons with a bowl appearance. NU won eight of its first nine games in this stretch under Devaney and Osborne, including two national championships. NU lost seven straight bowl games two decades into Osborne's tenure, many of them uncompetitive defeats to southeastern opposition. After a controversial championship game loss in 1993, he won his first major-poll national championship in 1994, avenging three previous Orange Bowl losses to Miami. Osborne retired after taking Nebraska to seven straight New Year's Six bowl games. Nebraska missed a bowl game in 2017 for the first time in ten years, beginning a seven-year stretch without postseason play that covered Scott Frost's entire tenure as head coach.

Memorial Stadium: The Sea of Red

By 1915, there was considerable momentum toward a steel-and-concrete stadium due to the program's success and the already-deteriorating state of Nebraska Field. Stiehm's departure and American entry into World War I temporarily slowed this momentum, but by the early 1920s, with "the present athletic field as inadequate now as the old one was in 1907," the university began plans to build a new stadium. The final game at the stadium was a 14-6 NU victory over Notre Dame on November 30, 1922.

Memorial Stadium, nicknamed "The Sea of Red," has served as Nebraska's home venue since 1923. The university began planning a new stadium complex shortly after World War I to replace the outdated Nebraska Field. Construction began in mid-1923 after a lengthy fundraising campaign and several design iterations. The unfinished Memorial Stadium opened on October 13, 1923, dedicated to honor Nebraskans who served in the American Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I. The stadium was built with grandstands along its east and west sidelines; its capacity of 31,080 was unchanged until end zone bleachers were installed decades later. Major expansions of East, West, and North Stadium between 1999 and 2013 raised capacity to 85,458 and completely enclosed the original superstructure, which remains largely intact. Nebraska has sold out 407 consecutive games at Memorial Stadium, an NCAA record for any sport that dates to 1962. In 2023, Memorial Stadium hosted "Volleyball Day in Nebraska" - the announced attendance of 92,003 was a stadium record and the highest ever recorded for a women's sporting event. The venue's listed capacity of 85,458 is thirteenth-highest among collegiate stadiums and twenty-fifth worldwide.

Traditions and Uniforms

Since 1994, Nebraska's home games have opened with the "Tunnel Walk" as the team takes the field before kickoff, typically to the Alan Parsons Project instrumental "Sirius." The team historically emerged from the southwest corner of the field; the entrance moved to the northwest corner upon completion of the Osborne Athletic Complex in 2006, and again to the northeast corner when the home locker room was moved to the Osborne Legacy Complex in 2023. The Tunnel Walk is preceded by a "Husker Power" chant - half the crowd chants "Husker" in unison and the other half responds with "Power." The Cornhusker Marching Band, nicknamed "The Pride of All Nebraska," performs prior to every home game.

Nebraska accepted its first walk-ons in the early 1960s and began an official program in 1973 when the NCAA reduced the number of scholarships schools could offer. Nebraska stocked its program with walk-ons from across the region through Tom Osborne and Frank Solich's tenures, and its rosters were often unusually large. Osborne credited his walk-ons with allowing flexibility to better scout future opponents and provided them the same access to training facilities and academic counseling as players on scholarship. Fans release red helium balloons to celebrate a Nebraska field goal on Nov.

Small sleeve stripes were added in 1946, increasing in size in the late 1950s until being phased out as mesh and tearaway material became popular. From 1980 to 1983, Nebraska's jerseys featured just an "N" on the sleeves. Stripes and TV numbers were permanently re-added in 1984, although both decreased in size as sleeves shortened. In 1989, a patch was added to the left shoulder to commemorate the hundredth season of Nebraska football; it remained for future seasons and was altered to read "Nebraska Football: A Winning Tradition." Player last names appeared on jerseys for bowl games starting with the 1971 Orange Bowl and for road games in 1980, but home jerseys remained nameless except for seniors playing their final home game. Nebraska's defense is often referred to as the "Blackshirts," a reference to the black jerseys worn by starting defensive players during practice.

Nebraska's pants had two stripes down each side from 1968 through 1994 before being removed in 1995. Nebraska traditionally wears white pants at home and red on the road, with rare exceptions. The team donned red pants with red jerseys for its 1986 contest with Oklahoma, but the combination was unofficially retired after a Nebraska loss. Nebraska has worn alternate uniforms for one game in most seasons since 2009. Adidas has been Nebraska's official shoe and uniform sponsor since 1996.

Rivalries

Nebraska and Colorado first met on November 17, 1898, a 23-10 Nebraska win in Boulder, and began playing regularly when CU joined the MVIAA in 1948. A bison head named Mr. Colorado replaced Oklahoma as Nebraska's traditional Thanksgiving weekend opponent when the Big 12 was established in 1996 (the Cornhuskers and Buffaloes were placed in the North Division with four other Big Eight members; the Sooners, Oklahoma State and the Texas schools were placed in the South Division, meaning Nebraska and Oklahoma would not meet every season). Nebraska regained control of the series in the 1990s with nine straight wins, many of them nationally significant. Colorado ended this streak in 2001 with a 62-36 win over No. Nebraska leads the series 50-21-2.

Nebraska and Iowa first met on November 26, 1891, a 22-0 Hawkeyes win in Omaha that was NU's first game against an out-of-state opponent. NU won five of just six games in the series from 1947 through 2010, though a 10-7 upset of No. Nebraska leads the series 30-22-3. Iowa holds the Heroes Trophy after its 2024 win in Iowa City.

Nebraska and Iowa State first met on November 19, 1896, a 12-4 Cornhuskers win in Lincoln. The schools were founding members of the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (later the Big Eight) in 1907. From 1926 to 2010, the two schools played each other uninterrupted as they moved from the Big Eight to the Big 12.

Hall of Fame Coaches

Of the 31 Cornhusker coaches, six have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame: Robinson, Fielding H. Yost, Bible, Jones, Devaney, and Osborne. Eight have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame: Edward N. Robinson, Fielding H. Yost, Dana X. Bible, Biff Jones, Pete Elliott, Bob Devaney, Tom Osborne, and Frank Solich.

Conclusion

The Nebraska Cornhuskers football program's coaching history is a tapestry of dedication, innovation, and success. From the early pioneers to the modern era, these leaders have shaped the program's identity and cemented its place among college football's elite. The legacies of Devaney and Osborne, in particular, continue to resonate with fans and inspire future generations of Cornhuskers. The program's commitment to excellence, combined with its passionate fan base and iconic traditions, ensures that Nebraska football will remain a force to be reckoned with for years to come.

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