1943 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team The 1943 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team was the representative of the University of Nebraska and member of the Big 6 Conference in the 1943 college football season . The team was coached by Adolph J . Lewandowski and played their home games at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln , Nebraska . Before the season . New Nebraska athletic director and head football coach Lewandowski assumed control of a Nebraska program in distress . World War II was dramatically impacting the way of life in the United States , which contributed at least in part to the change in fortunes for the Cornhuskers , although the Nebraska program was fortunate to still have a team on the field at all , as at least twenty major college programs suspended their football programs in 1943 due to the impacts of the war . Coming off the 3 – 7 – 0 1942 season , it would not take much to post an improvement if Nebraska could overcome the setbacks dealt over the past two seasons . Former Nebraska all - American star player and assistant coach Ed Weir also returned to the coaching staff this season after five years away , increasing hopes of a Cornhusker rebirth , though overall the coaching staff was reduced by more than half of its personnel from 1942 . Game notes . Minnesota . The Golden Gophers brought Nebraska to Minneapolis and provided a harsh introduction to the 1943 season for the green and depleted Cornhusker team . Scoring on their first possession and leading 13 – 0 by the end of the first quarter , Minnesota never looked back as they handed Nebraska the worst loss in program history , a dominating 54 – 0 blanking . This shutout loss came in just the second game since Nebraska had set the previous program worst - loss record when they dropped a 0 – 46 decision to the Iowa Pre - Flight Seahawks in 1942 . It was the third straight loss to Minnesota , as the Cornhuskers fell to 4 – 19 – 2 in the series . Indiana . Reeling from the record - setting loss by Minnesota the week before , Nebraska met Indiana in Lincoln for the home opener . For the second game in a row , Nebraska ' s foe put up a record 54 points , but unlike the previous week , the Cornhuskers managed to produce some offense and put some scores in during the second half . It was Nebraska ' s third straight defeat in the series , as Indiana finally evened up the series at 3 – 3 – 2 against the Cornhuskers . Iowa State . Nebraska opened conference play against Iowa State , a team that had fallen to the Cornhuskers in their last four meetings . It seemed that any hopes to stem the opening downward spiral were well - placed in this contest , and by the end of the first half the picture was much brighter than the earlier games , as the score was tied at 6 – 6 . Nebraska was unable to score again in the second half , a difficulty not shared by Iowa State . Thus the Cyclones , by adding 21 points after the break , snapped their losing streak against Nebraska . The Cornhuskers were suffering a hard start to the season , coming away from this game with nothing but the series lead well - entrenched at 31 – 6 – 1 . Although there were three earlier seasons that opened with two losses , this was the first team in Nebraska football history to post three straight opening losses . Kansas . The downward fortunes of the Cornhusker squad probably contributed as much as the rain to the small turnout of spectators for the game , one of the smallest ever homecoming crowds in Lincoln . For the first time in the season , Nebraska held the lead in a game when they went up 7 – 0 to start out . Kansas responded before halftime but failed to convert the point after . Down by one point , the Jayhawks were held off by Nebraska for the rest of the game , allowing the Cornhuskers to escape with the season ' s first win , by one point . The victory was Nebraska ' s fifth straight against Kansas , and extended the number of seasons the Jayhawks had failed to get a win from the Cornhuskers to a record 27 straight meetings as they slipped in the series to 9 – 38 – 3 . Missouri . Missouri scored first and then never relinquished the lead . Although the Cornhuskers enjoyed their greatest offensive output of the season so far with 20 points scored on the day , the Tigers became the third team this season to score 54 points against the Cornhuskers , once again tying the most points ever scored against Nebraska . Missouri ' s win slightly narrowed the gap in their series with the Cornhuskers , bringing them up to 11 – 23 – 3 . The Missouri – Nebraska Bell remained in Columbia for a third year . Kansas State . Playing a sloppy game in the rain , Nebraska grabbed at the advantage of starting out in the lead to try to keep up with the Wildcats . Successfully holding on to a 7 – 7 tie at the half , the Cornhuskers managed to outscore Kansas State 6 – 0 in the second half , though both teams failed to capitalize on numerous other opportunities . The Wildcats were pushed farther back in the series , to 4 – 22 – 2 . Pittsburgh . Due to wartime travel restrictions , the annual contest with bitter rival was canceled . Iowa . The Cornhuskers attempted to make a game of it , and in fact kept even with the Hawkeyes for a time with a mere one point 13 – 14 deficit , but the momentum fizzled out as Iowa ran away with three more touchdowns and the game to hang another loss on the beleaguered Nebraska squad and move to 9 – 20 – 3 overall between the teams . Oklahoma . The 1943 season came to a close at Memorial Stadium with the Oklahoma Sooners visiting to wrap up the conference slate . Although historically the Sooners had struggled agsint Nebraska , it was a downtrodden Cornhusker squad they faced on this day . Without putting up much a fight , Nebraska slowly folded and Oklahoma pulled away to win by nineteen points , snapping their streak of four straight losses to the Cornhuskers . More importantly , it was the first time that the Sooners handed Nebraska defeat on the field in Lincoln , though at 14 – 6 – 3 to date in the series , they had a long way to go to catch Nebraska ' s lead . After the season . At the end of the previous season , a disappointing 3 – 7 – 0 ( . 350 ) campaign , it did not seem as if things could get any worse . The Cornhuskers had suffered occasional off years in the past , but now there had been three straight losing seasons suffered by a program that had never even suffered two consecutive losing seasons in the history of the program , with the 1943 final record of 2 – 6 – 0 ( . 250 ) an even lower mark than before and the second - worst single - season record in Nebraska history . Nebraska ' s overall football record slipped to 303 – 116 – 31 ( . 708 ) as the conference record fell to 109 – 22 – 11 ( . 806 ) . The Nebraska Cornhuskers football team was entering a dark time .