List of Nebraska Cornhuskers bowl games
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This list of Nebraska Cornhuskers bowl games shows the bowl games the Nebraska Cornhuskers football program has participated in since the inception of college football's bowl system in 1902. Nebraska has played in fifty-five bowl games, including a record thirty-five straight from 1969 to 2003, with a record of 27–27.[1]
In 1915, Nebraska was invited to face Northwest Conference champion Washington State in the second bowl game ever played, but university officials balked at the cost of sending the team to Pasadena and declined.[2] NU played its first bowl game in the 1941 Rose Bowl, losing to eventual national champion Stanford. Nebraska was invited to the 1955 Orange Bowl despite its 6–4 record (conference rules prevented champion Oklahoma from appearing in consecutive seasons), falling to Duke 34–7 at Burdine Stadium (later the Miami Orange Bowl) in its first of seventeen Orange Bowl appearances.[3]
Bob Devaney's inaugural season ended with the first bowl victory in program history, a 36–34 win over Miami in the 1962 Gotham Bowl.[1] Three years later, he took Nebraska to its first national championship game (though it was not yet an official designation) against Alabama in the 1966 Orange Bowl; Bear Bryant's Crimson Tide won 39–28 in the first of three bowl meetings between the coaches.[4] Nebraska did not appear in a bowl game in 1967 or 1968, but returned to postseason play in 1969 and began an NCAA-record streak of thirty-five consecutive seasons with a bowl appearance.[a] NU won eight of its first nine games in this stretch under Devaney and Osborne, including two national championships. Nebraska regularly featured in the Orange Bowl due to the Big Eight's bowl affiliations; its 1983 defeat to Miami is considered one of college football's greatest games.[6]
NU lost seven straight bowl games two decades into Osborne's tenure, many of them uncompetitive defeats to southeastern opposition. After a controversial championship game loss in 1993, he won his first major-poll national championship in 1994, avenging three previous Orange Bowl losses to Miami.[7] Osborne retired after taking Nebraska to seven straight New Year's Six bowl games. NU's lengthy bowl streak continued through Frank Solich’s tenure but ended in 2004.
Nebraska missed a bowl game in 2017 for the first time in ten years, beginning a seven-year stretch without postseason play that covered Scott Frost's entire tenure as head coach. Nebraska returned to a bowl game in 2024.[8]
List of bowl games
| National championship game[b] | Nebraska win | Nebraska loss |