2001 retrospective: Nebraska vs. Stanford football, 1941 Rose Bowl

Imagine a Nebraska football team going 8-1 and winning a conference championship. Now, imagine a Comhusker team with those credentials not expecting a bowl invite. Welcome to 1940, a year when war was on the horizon and postseason play in college football was a rarity. It was also a year when the Cornhuskers, Big Six Conference Champions, forever engraved their names in the history of Nebraska football by participating in the 1941 Rose BowL Today, it is hard for many to picture the hysteria surrounding the Nebraska campus when it was announced NU. would play Stanford on Jan. 1, 1941, in the “granddaddy of them all.” For the members of the storied team, it comes rather easily. “We were studying for finals and it came out on the radio,” recalls Herman Rohrig, a senior on the team. “Naturally, we got rid of the , books in a hurry. We were just tickled to death.” The players weren’t the only ones who dropped their studies in celebration of Nebraska’s first-ever bowl bid. All classes were canceled the next day. Students paraded down O Street, and as Ed Schwartzkopf remembers, ‘It was a hell of a thrill for a bunch of Nebraska guys like us.’