1917 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team The 1917 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team was the representative of the University of Nebraska in the 1917 college football season . The team was coached by E . J . Stewart and played their home games at Nebraska Field in Lincoln , Nebraska . Before the season . Coach Stewart ' s second Cornhusker team was coming off of a down year that anywhere else would have been considered very successful . The two losses of 1916 , although ending the four - season unbeaten streak , still did not prevent Nebraska from notching a seventh consecutive league title . Stewart greatly expanded his roster to 22 players , an increase of almost 30 % from the 17 players on the squad in 1916 . Coach Stewart set up this year ' s schedule as an ambitious test , as powerhouses Michigan , Notre Dame and Syracuse all had dates with the Cornhuskers on the slate . Game notes . Nebraska Wesleyan . The Cornhuskers opened the new season with a chip on their shoulder , and completely smashed Nebraska Wesleyan in a bit of revenge for being held to just 21 points in the previous year ' s shutout win over NWU . This was the fourth and final time Nebraska scored 100 or more points in the history of the program , the previous coming in 1911 in a 117 - 0 blanking of Kearney State . NWU remained winless against Nebraska , 0 - 7 . Iowa . The Cornhuskers put up another shutout by blanking Iowa , continuing the strong start intended to wipe away the memory of last year ' s two losses , and improved over Iowa to 12 - 4 - 3 . Notre Dame . Notre Dame returned to Lincoln with hopes of staying on top of the Cornhuskers , but ND assistant Knute Rockne had scouted the team in advance and reported back to ND head coach Jesse Harper that Nebraska was to be feared after the strong 147 - 0 combined scoring of their first two games . Notre Dame had started the season with a 55 - 0 shutout over Kalamazoo but was then held to a scoreless tie against Wisconsin before the date in Lincoln . It wasn ' t until the second quarter that the Cornhuskers managed to post the first points , and though the teams continued to fight severely , the defenses carried the rest of the day . Notre Dame ' s closest attempt reached the Nebraska 8 before an interception killed the drive . Among the Notre Dame players present was future College Football Hall of Fame inductee George Gipp ( of " Win one for the Gipper " fame ) , who in this case was handed his first career loss at Notre Dame as Nebraska moved ahead in the series to 2 - 1 . Michigan . Nebraska was riding a wave of success , having shut out all three of their opponents on the season , including Notre Dame , and arrived in Ann Arbor looking for their first win against Michigan . The game was in fact a shutout , but not the one the Cornhuskers were hoping for , as the Wolverines sent Nebraska home in futility and without a win in the series , now at 0 - 2 - 1 against Michigan to date . The bitter defeat was the first Nebraska blanking since Minnesota defeated the Cornhuskers 13 - 0 in 1912 . Missouri . After four years off , the series with conference foe Missouri was renewed in Lincoln . Still smarting from last week ' s shutout beating in Ann Arbor , the Cornhuskers unloaded on the helpess Tigers and put up their fourth shutout on the year in front of the homecoming crowd , moving up to 11 - 3 all time against Missouri . Kansas . Kansas put a scare into the Cornhuskers , having brought Nebraska down to Lawrence and carrying some confidence after defeating them the previous season in Lincoln . The scoring output was much lower than earlier games with comparable foes as the Jayhawks refused to be shut down . Nebraska still escaped with the win anyway , staying perfect in their only two conference games of the year , and increased their series lead over Kansas to 15 - 9 . Syracuse . Up against the third powerhouse team of the season , Nebraska could not quite come up with enough to close out the season with a win , losing by only one point to Syracuse in Lincoln , in the first meeting of these teams . After the season . Coach Stewart ended his second season much like his first , with two bitter nonconference losses but with another conference championship . Nebraska had so far strung together an implausible eight straight conference titles , spanning all of coach Stewart ' s career as well as the entire career of his predecessor , Ewald O . Stiehm . Coach Stewart ' s Nebraska career record fell slightly to 11 - 4 - 0 ( . 733 ) , and the two season losses nudged the program ' s overall record down to 164 - 51 - 11 ( . 750 ) , though the conference record improved to 24 - 3 - 2 ( . 862 ) . Coach Stewart departed the football program after this year in order to assist in the war effort , as the United States moved closer to involvement in World War I . He would spend time at the YMCA helping young men train in preparation for joining the armed forces , but would eventually return to Nebraska to run the basketball program .