Return To Glory: Nebraska’s Victory Over Michigan in 1962
The Nebraska football program in January 1962 was at rock bottom and morale had never been lower. After six consecutive losing seasons, fan interest in the team had declined. Local banks purchased blocks of tickets and left them on the counters for their customers, for anyone to
take for free. There were games during the “dreary years” in which the stadium was only half full. Nebraska had the worst facilities in the Big 8–locker room facilities were poor and office space was constricted.
After numerous failed coaching searches going back over twenty years, Nebraska finally found its savior in Bob Devaney. Nebraska’s new coach was a Michigan native whose father was a sailor on iron ore boats that sailed the Great Lakes. Devaney attended tiny Alma College in Michigan, where he became a star football player. After Devaney graduated from college, he coached high school football in Michigan for fourteen years. Every team he coached had a winning record.
Devaney’s teams in Alpena, Michigan were outstanding and won fifty-two out of sixty-one games between 1945 to 1952. By the time Devaney reached age thirty-seven in 1952, he had decided to get out of coaching at age forty, earn a master’s degree and take an administrative job. But then opportunity struck for Devaney.
As a high school coach in Michigan, Devaney had gotten to know the coaching staff at Michigan State. Devaney was very good friends with Duffy Daugherty, the Spartans’ assistant head coach and the future Spartan head coach (Daugherty later won four national titles as head coach and became a member of the College Football Hall of Fame). Due to his success as a high school coach, Devaney had been asked to lecture at Michigan State several times.
Devaney and his family had only returned from a vacation in Canada for about thirty minutes when the phone rang. Devaney picked up and Daugherty offered him a job at Michigan State as an assistant coach. Devaney was of the belief that if he had not picked up the phone,
Daugherty would have called somebody else and offered him the job. Devaney later said this is “where my real life began.”
After coaching four years at Michigan State, Devaney landed the head coaching job at the University of Wyoming. Once again Daugherty was instrumental in helping his protégé get a promotion–he recommended Devaney to the Wyoming administration. Laramie is in a very sparsely populated state and was a tough place to recruit good athletes. Devaney and his assistant coaches met recruits at airports and the bus depots to assure them Wyoming was a good place to attend school and play football. Nonetheless, Devaney’s teams at Wyoming went 35–10–5 and won four conference titles between 1957–1961.
After Jennings was fired, Nebraska Chancellor Clifford Hardin reached out to Daugherty to see if he was interested in the Nebraska job. The Michigan State head coach was not interested but he told Hardin: “But if it’s a good man you’re interested in, well, there’s a fellow who used to work for me…He’s put together some great teams at the University of Wyoming. Name’s Bob Devaney.”
Shortly after that fateful phone call, Devaney traveled to Lincoln under an assumed name in December 1961 to interview for the Nebraska job. One would think it was some kind of cloak and dagger mission. A university employee went to the Lincoln airport to pick up a salesman named Mister Roberts. Once this putative salesman arrived on the campus, he watched numerous reels of Nebraska football games and inspected the athletic facilities.” 292 After watching reams of film, Devaney remarked: “Bill Jennings was quite a recruiter. There are some good boys here.”
Daugherty advised Devaney to take the Nebraska job. The Michigan State head coach told him that he could win a national championship at Nebraska. The administration was equally encouraging. Hardin and the regents told Devaney that Nebraska had a proud football tradition
and that they would provide him with the resources he needed to win. 294 With those assurances, Devaney accepted the job and turned around Nebraska’s fortunes.
One word best describes Devaney and that is charisma. He was a sincere, warm, and honest individual. His wit and charm were superb tools for convincing athletes and their parents. “A smart, exceptionally quick-witted man, he could talk crop rotation with farmers and profit and loss with financiers–if their sons were football players.” Devaney was a great motivator of his assistant coaches and players. He also had an excellent staff of assistant coaches, all of whom followed him from Wyoming. Some of them had coached with him in Michigan.
Devaney did add a promising young graduate student to his new staff in 1962. He hired Tom Osborne to coach the freshman team and monitor the players’ academic progress. Osborne had just completed playing three years in the NFL and decided to attend graduate school to earn a PhD in educational psychology. Osborne did not draw a salary his first year, but
he was able to eat for free at the training table. He was later promoted to receivers’ coach and offensive coordinator.
Nebraska’s new head coach had a tremendous, self-deprecating wit. Shortly after he was hired, Devaney joked to the press: “I don’t expect to win enough games to be put on NCAA probation. I just want to win enough to warrant an investigation.” Devaney had the healthy attitude that football should be fun. Nebraska split end Guy Ingles said: “Coach Devaney was fun to be around. He’d laugh and giggle with you a little bit.” Devaney himself said: “You also have to have some fun. Sometimes, having fun can make you work harder.”
That attitude extended to Devaney’s practices. Under Jennings, the practices lasted four hours and the team scrimmaged with full contact on Thursday. By Saturday, the team was worn out. In contrast, Devaney’s practices lasted two hours and the players had a clear idea of what
they were supposed to be doing. Devaney introduced water and orange breaks to keep the team refreshed.
Nebraska got off to a promising start in Devaney’s debut against South Dakota. The crowd roared its approval when Nebraska threw a pass on its first play from scrimmage even though it fell incomplete. The fans had grown weary of Jennings’ boring and ineffectual run first offense. Another innovation of sorts was that Nebraska went for third downs. The team had
usually punted on third down when Jennings was coach. 301 Devaney won his first game 53–0 and a very happy crowd left Memorial Stadium.
Nebraska’s first real test was in their second game at traditional powerhouse Michigan. The Huskers were going to take on the Wolverines in the cavernous stadium nicknamed the “Big House,” which seated 101,000 fans. At the time, the Big 10 was regarded as the premier conference in college football. Nobody but the Nebraska coaches and players expected the Huskers to win the game. The Huskers were ten-point underdogs, and the Associated Press’ football expert predicted a 22–7 Michigan victory.
Before the season, Devaney and his staff made defeating Michigan a high priority. The Wolverines had graduated a significant number of important players and the coaches concluded they were overrated after numerous hours of film study. Devaney saw this game as an opportunity to convince both the players and the fans that Nebraska was back.
Quarterback Dennis Claridge and fullback Bill “Thunder” Thornton led Nebraska to one of its greatest wins in school history. The game was close in the first half and the Huskers clung to a 7–6 lead at the halftime break. Nebraska dominated the third quarter and took a 19–6 lead. The Wolverines scored next, and the Huskers held a narrow 19–13 lead. Nebraska finished strong and won the game by a comfortable 25–13 margin.
Nebraska fans were thrilled by the victory. The Huskers were welcomed home by a crowd of 2,500 delirious fans at the Lincoln airport and there were thousands more stuck in traffic. It was the biggest crowd for a returning Husker team since the 1941 Rose Bowl game.
Devaney later wrote that he cherished this win more than any other game in his storied career at Nebraska, and this includes the 1971 Orange Bowl win over Louisiana State and the 1971 Game of the Century against Oklahoma. “The win over Michigan is the one that put us on the map. It showed the country we were turning things around. I think the players knew how much the game meant to me.”
Nebraska went on to have its best regular season since 1940 and finished with an 8–2 record. They went on to defeat Miami 36–34 in the Gotham Bowl in New York City on a cold, dreary December day. Nebraska was back.