1940 Stanford Indians football team The 1940 Stanford Indians football team , nicknamed the " Wow Boys " , represented Stanford University in National Collegiate Athletic Association ( NCAA ) intercollegiate competition during the 1940 season . First - year head coach Clark Shaughnessy inherited a team that finished with a 1 – 7 – 1 record the previous season . He installed his own version of the T formation , a system that had largely fallen into disuse since the 1890s and was viewed as obsolete . The Indians shocked observers when they won all ten of their games including the Rose Bowl , which prompted several selectors to declare them the 1940 national champions . Stanford ' s dramatic reversal of fortunes prompted football programs across the nation to abandon the single - wing formation in favor of the new T formation . Preseason . Clark Shaughnessy had served as the head coach at the University of Chicago since 1930 . While there , he developed a new version of the T formation based upon the " pro T " that was concurrently in use by the Chicago Bears of the National Football League . The T formation , in which three backs lined up abreast and behind the quarterback who was himself behind the center , was an obsolescent system that had been disused since the 1890s in favor of the single - wing and double - wing formation s . Shaugnessy , however , incorporated several new features in his own version of the T . It utilized flanker s and the man - in - motion concept , and it emphasized deception and quickness over the brute force necessitated by the wing formations . Shaughnessy was not very successful at Chicago and his teams never finished a season with more wins than losses . In 1939 , the Chicago Maroons compiled a 2 – 6 record and failed to defeat any of their conference opponents . All six losses were defensive shutouts , the worst being an 85 – 0 rout by Michigan . After the season , the University of Chicago disbanded its football program . Instead of remaining at Chicago , where he also held a position as a professor and earned a comfortable salary of $ 10 , 000 per year , Shaughnessy elected to continue coaching football , which he described as his hobby and passion . For 1940 , he was hired by Stanford University whose Indians had finished the previous season with a 1 – 7 – 1 record . Stanford center Milt Vucinich said , " We ' d been reading about all those beatings Shaughnessy ' s men had taken , so we were joking among ourselves that wasn ' t it just like Stanford to hire somebody like this to coach us . " In his first address to the team , Shaughnessy told them , " Boys , I am not to be addressed as ' Clark ' or , especially , [ the nickname of ] ' Soup ' . To you , I am ' Mr . Shaughnessy ' or ' Coach . ' Nothing else . I am a professor of football . . . Now , I have a formation for you that if you learn it well will take you to the Rose Bowl . " He asserted that one of his plays , a line plunge by a back without a blocker , would score ten to twelve touchdowns alone , which was more than the Indians had scored the entire previous season . The players were understandably skeptical , and they were not alone . Football innovator and single - wing proponent Glenn " Pop " Warner said before the season , " If Stanford wins a single game with that crazy formation , you can throw all the football I ever knew into the Pacific Ocean . " Shaughnessy later discovered that the players , who were mostly returners from the 1939 team , were talented , but not suited to the single wing . As a contemporary newspaper noted , " The [ 1939 ] team looked great in some games and sour in others . The machinery was there but it wasn ' t running as smoothly as had been hoped for . " Season . Stanford opened the season with a road game against at Kezar Stadium . It was part of the first - ever major college football doubleheader , which also featured and Utah . The Indians defeated San Francisco convincingly , 27 – 0 . In attendance was their next opponents ' head coach , Tex Oliver of , and he said , " [ H ] alf of the time neither we or the spectators knew who was the ballcarrier until someone would dart out from the sidelines with the pigskin under his arms . . . and it was probably [ quarterback Frank < nowiki > ] < / nowiki > Albert . " Oliver added , " If we expect to stop their attack , we ' ll have to work fast " , and immediately returned home to conduct intense practices in preparation for Stanford . The extra preparation did not halt the Stanford attack , however , and according to Harold Parrott in the " The Milwaukee Journal " , " the duped Webfoots chased phantom ball carriers all over the field . They tackled everybody but the nonchalant - looking Stanford man who actually had the ball . " Stanford won again , 13 – 0 . The following week , the Indians narrowly edged , 7 – 6 , to remain " the only untied , undefeated team in the Far West . " After defeating at home , 26 – 14 , Stanford met the defending Pacific Coast Conference ( PCC ) champions , Southern California . With 90 seconds remaining to play , the game was tied at seven , but Stanford used its deception tactics to score two touchdowns to win , 21 – 7 . The Indians then beat UCLA the next week in Los Angeles , 20 – 14 . Washington , the only other team with a perfect Pacific Coast Conference record , led Stanford by a touchdown at half time . In the third quarter , the Huskies extended their lead when they capitalized on an interception with a field goal . Before the end of the period , though , Albert engineered two long drives that culminated in touchdowns . In the final quarter , Indians back Pete Kmetovic caught an interception and tallied the final score . Stanford won , 20 – 10 . After beating Oregon State , 28 – 14 , Stanford traveled to Berkeley to face in the annual rivalry , the " Big Game " . The Indians defeated the Bears , 13 – 7 , to guarantee a Rose Bowl invitation in lieu of Washington , which despite losing to Stanford head - to - head , had beaten UCLA more convincingly , 41 – 0 . Postseason . In the final Associated Press Poll , which was published on December 2 before the bowl game s , Stanford was ranked second in the nation behind Minnesota . On December 1 , Stanford accepted its invitation to represent the Pacific coast in the 1941 Rose Bowl , and Nebraska was selected to represent the East . Nebraska had compiled an 8 – 1 record with its only loss against Minnesota . Pundits deemed Stanford to be the favorite to win the Rose Bowl . The game was attended by 91 , 300 spectators and each team was paid $ 140 , 916 for its participation . Nebraska received the opening kickoff and halfback returned it 27 yards to the Stanford 48 - yard line . The drive culminated in a short rush by fullback Ike Francis , and with the extra point , the Cornhuskers took a 7 - 0 lead on the first possession . Stanford drove into Nebraska territory , but fumbled the ball away on the 28 - yard line . The Cornhuskers punted it away and the Indians mounted a touchdown drive to equalize the score . In the second quarter , Nebraska recovered a fumbled punt return and on the subsequent possession scored on a 33 - yard pass . Stanford responded immediately , and Albert passed to Hugh Gallarneau for a 40 - yard touchdown to tie the game at 13 . Albert made the extra point kick to take the lead . In the third quarter , the Indians drove 76 yards to within inches of the opposing goal line , but the Cornhusker defense held and took over on downs . Nebraska punted the ball away and Kmetovic returned it 40 yards for a touchdown . Albert made the extra point and Stanford went on to win the game , 21 - 13 . After the season , three NCAA - recognized selectors named Stanford the national championship team . At the time , the Poling System bestowed that title upon the Indians . In later years , the Billingsley Report and the Helms Athletic Foundation retroactively declared Stanford the 1940 champions . Frank Albert was named a consensus All - American at quarterback and finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting . The Newspaper Enterprise Association named Hugh Gallarneau an All - America back . Legacy . An earlier doubter , Pop Warner acknowledged the unexpected success of the revived formation . During Stanford ' s meteoric 1940 season , Warner said , " Shaughnessy has taken that T formation we used when I played at Cornell in and made it work as it has never worked before . This is because he has added his own ideas . There is no mystery about Shaughnessy ' s success at Stanford as I see it . The only mystery is where the ball is on some of those tricky plays of his . " The 1940 Stanford Indians , who became known as the " Wow Boys " , proved the value of the T formation , and in response , football coaches around the nation adopted it for their own teams . Notre Dame coach Frank Leahy caused a stir in 1942 when he scrapped the venerable box formation in favor of the T . A survey conducted by " Football Digest " at the end of the decade revealed that 250 of the 350 best football teams were utilizing the formation . Shaughnessy ' s T gave rise to various incarnations , including the pro set , power I , veer , and the wishbone formation . Clark Shaughnessy was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1968 . Today , his variant of the T formation remains in use , with some modifications , and according to " Sports Illustrated " , it " remains the longest - running formation in the history of the game " .