Fans celebrated by waving banners of old gold. "The score stood 10 to nothing in the state university’s favor and great and loud were the yells that filled the atmosphere," a newspaper account said.

The date was Nov. 27, 1890. The state university was Nebraska, which had just defeated a team representing the Omaha YMCA. The game, composed of a 35-minute first half and a 43-minute second half, was played in Omaha. So began Nebraska’s rich football tradition.

It was an abbreviated opening "season." Nebraska’s first football team played only one other game, in February of 1891, an 18-0 victory against Doane College in Crete, Neb.

Nebraska didn't actually have a football coach until 1893, when Frank Crawford was hired for an amount reported to have been between $300 and $500. His salary included room and board. Crawford also played quarterback in at least one game during his brief tenure as coach.

Nebraska's first game against an opponent from outside the state was in 1891, when Iowa won a game played in Omaha, 22-0. The first victory against an out-of-state opponent came in 1892, when George Flippin led Nebraska past Illinois at Lincoln. The score was 6-0.

Flippin was the first African-American athlete at Nebraska and only the fifth black athlete at a predominantly white university. Because of Flippin's presence on the roster, Missouri refused to play a scheduled game with Nebraska at Omaha in 1892. The result was a 1-0 forfeit.

In the early years, Nebraska's football team had several nicknames, including Treeplanters, Rattlesnake Boys, Antelopes, Old Gold Knights (which didn't work well after the school colors were made scarlet and cream around 1900) and Bugeaters. The team was first called Cornhuskers in 1899. Charles "Cy" Sherman, sports editor of the Nebraska State Journal at the time, assigned the nickname.

Sherman, who later gained national prominence as the sports editor of The Lincoln Star, was known as the "father of the Cornhuskers" and was made an honorary member of the Nebraska letterman's club.

Nebraska was an independent football power in the Midwest by then, under the direction of Coach Walter C. "Bummy" Booth. "Nebraska occupies a unique position in western football," a newspaper account in 1903 said. "Too strong to find fearful competitors, the Cornhuskers can almost weep with Alexander the Great because they have no more teams to conquer."

Booth coached Nebraska from 1900 to 1905, with his teams compiling a 46-8-1 record. In 1902, a team featuring Johnny Bender and Charles Borg went undefeated, untied and unscored upon. For more Husker History, click here...