The Kansas State–Nebraska football rivalry was an American college football rivalry between the Kansas State Wildcats and Nebraska Cornhuskers. The series was contested annually for nearly ninety years when the schools were conference opponents, but ended when Nebraska joined the Big Ten in 2011. Kansas State and Nebraska are separated by 135 miles, the nearest cross-border schools in both the Big Eight and Big 12.
History Kansas State and Nebraska first met in 1911, a 59–0 Cornhuskers victory at Nebraska Field that remains the most lopsided result in series history. Kansas State joined the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association (later the Big Eight) in 1913, but prior to the first meeting between the schools as conference opponents, KSU head coach Guy Lowman threatened a boycott due to the presence of lineman Clinton Ross, a black player, on Nebraska's roster. Lowman claimed a gentlemen's agreement throughout the conference disallowed black athletes; Nebraska denied such an agreement existed and the game was played as scheduled.
After a brief pause due to World War I and Nebraska's temporary departure from the MVIAA, the series was renewed in 1922 and played continually for the next eighty-nine years. The 1939 meeting was televised in Manhattan, the second televised college football game.
Nebraska always held the upper hand in the series, but took complete control after hiring Bob Devaney in 1962 – from 1960 through 1997, NU was 37–1 against KSU. In 1992, the teams met in the Coca-Cola Classic at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan, where Nebraska defeated Kansas State 38–24 to clinch the Big Eight championship.
Big 12 era In 1996, the Big Eight merged with four Texas schools of the Southwest to form the Big 12 Conference, with KSU and NU placed in the North Division alongside most former Big Eight schools. Devaney successor Tom Osborne retired in 1997 without ever losing to the Wildcats, but throughout the mid-1990s Bill Snyder was turning around KSU's long-struggling program.
The year after Osborne's retirement, KSU ended its twenty-nine-year losing streak to Nebraska in perhaps the most famous game in series history. The second-ranked Wildcats finished with 512 offensive yards in a 40–30 victory, widely remembered for a missed facemask penalty on fourth down of Nebraska's second-to-last drive. Snyder defeated Nebraska three more times before his first retirement in 2005.
In July 2010, Nebraska announced it would join the Big Ten Conference, essentially ending the school's rivalry with Kansas State. Months later, NU beat KSU 48–13 in Manhattan, the most recent game of the series. No future games are scheduled.
Game results
See also List of NCAA college football rivalry games
References