1940 Stanford Indians football team

Schedule

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Rankings

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 formations. Shaugnessy, however, incorporated several new features in his own version of the T. It utilized flankers and the man-in-motion concept, and it emphasized deception and quickness over the brute force necessitated by the wing formations. 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."

Season

Stanford opened the season with a road game against San Francisco U at Kezar Stadium. It was part of the first-ever major college football doubleheader, which also featured Santa Clara and Utah. In attendance was their next opponents' head coach, Tex Oliver of Oregon, and he said, "Half 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 Albert."

The extra preparation did not halt the Stanford attack, however, and according to Harold Parrott in 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." After defeating Washington State at home, 26–14, 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. After beating Oregon State, 28–14,

Postseason

In the final Associated Press Poll, which was published on December 2 before the bowl games, Stanford was ranked second in the US behind Minnesota. 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.

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.

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".

Players drafted by the NFL

Source:

Notes

References

References

1. "National Poll Champions", [http://web1.ncaa.org/web_files/stats/football_records/DI/2007/2007RB.pdf ''2007 NCAA Division I Football Records Book''] (PDF), pp. 74–76, National Collegiate Athletic Association, 2007. Accessed 2009-07-28. [https://web.archive.org/web/20090731114415/http://web1.ncaa.org/web_files/stats/football_records/DI/2007/2007RB.pdf Archived] 2009-07-31.
2. [http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/janfeb/red/wowboys.html Wow Boys: The Team That Changed the Game], ''Stanford Magazine'', Stanford Alumni Association, January/February 2007. Accessed 2009-07-28. [https://web.archive.org/web/20080706142740/http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2007/janfeb/red/wowboys.html Archived] 2009-07-30.
3. Bill Tobitt. (September 29, 1940). "Stanford Tribe Defeats Favored U.S.F., 27 to 0". Oakland Tribune.
4. (October 6, 1940). "Tricky Stanford beats Oregon U: Razzle-dazzle football wins 13 to 0 victory". Santa Barbara News-Press.
5. (October 13, 1940). "Tribe Amazes Shaughnessy". Oakland Tribune.
6. (October 20, 1940). "Stanford crushes Washington State, 26–14". The Fresno Bee.
7. (October 27, 1940). "Stanford downs Troy in Rose Bowl drive". The Pasadena Post.
8. (November 3, 1940). "Stanford rolls on, 20–14". The San Francisco Examiner.
9. Prescott Sullivan. (November 10, 1940). "Cards Smash Huskies, 20–10: Stanford Trails 10–0, then Stages Slashing Comeback". San Francisco Examiner.
10. (November 17, 1940). "Stanford Rose Bowl bound with 28–14 triumph over OSC". The Humboldt Times.
11. Sullivan, Prescott. (December 1, 1940). "Cards trim Bears for 9th straight win: Jurkovich hurt, Reinhard ill but UC barely beaten". The San Francisco Examiner.
12. Paul Zimmerman. (January 2, 1941). "Stanford Wins Over Nebraska". Los Angeles Times.
13. . ["1940 Stanford Cardinal Schedule and Results"](https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/stanford/1940-schedule.html). *[[Sports Reference]]*.
14. {{College Football HoF
15. [https://archive.today/20130102062258/http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1092785/index.htm A Melding Of Men All Suited To A T: Clark Shaughnessy was a dour theoretician, Frankie Albert an unrestrained quarterback and Stanford a team of losers, but combined they forever changed the game of football], ''[[Sports Illustrated]]'', September 5, 1977.
16. [https://archive.today/20130102063603/http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1016794/index.htm The 1940s: The Bears roll out the T formation], ''[[Sports Illustrated]]'', August 30, 1999.
17. Shaughnessy was not very successful at Chicago and his teams never finished a season with more wins than losses.[http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/coaching/alltime_coach_year_by_year.php?coachid=2114 Clark D. Shaughnessy Records by Year], College Football Data Warehouse, retrieved July 28, 2009. [https://web.archive.org/web/20091114234912/http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/coaching/alltime_coach_year_by_year.php?coachid=2114 Archived] 2009-07-31.
18. link. (2016-03-03 , College Football Data Warehouse, retrieved July 28, 2009.)
19. [https://web.archive.org/web/20080617121004/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,764952,00.html Sport: Football, Nov. 4, 1940], ''[[Time (magazine). Time]]'', November 4, 1940.
20. 0-8032-7632-X.
21. He asserted that one of his plays, a [[rush (American football). line plunge]] by a back without a [[block (American football)
22. Harold Parrott, [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=au0ZAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pyIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3339,5268156 Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Rose Bowl], ''[[The Milwaukee Journal]]'', p. 10, December 29, 1940.
23. The Indians defeated San Francisco convincingly, 27–0.[http://www.cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/pac10/stanford/yearly_results.php?year=1940 Stanford Yearly Results: 1940–1942], College Football Data Warehouse, retrieved July 28, 2009. [https://web.archive.org/web/20090720112219/http://cfbdatawarehouse.com/data/div_ia/pac10/stanford/yearly_results.php?year=1940 Archived] 2009-07-30.
24. 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.[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7IoRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=X-gDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6590,4315018 Tex Oliver Rates Stanford on Par With 1939 U.S.C. Champs; Oregon Mentor Scouts Indians], ''[[Eugene Register-Guard]]'', p. 6, September 30, 1940.
25. Stanford won again, 13–0. The following week, the Indians narrowly edged [[1940 Santa Clara Broncos football team|Santa Clara]], 7–6, to remain "the only untied, undefeated team in the Far West."[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iAENAAAAIBAJ&sjid=wGkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3322,4174419 Stanford On Climb Again; Shaughnessy Does Good Job In New Post], ''[[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]]'', p. 17, October 17, 1940.
26. Stanford met the defending [[Pacific Coast Conference]] (PCC) champions, [[1940 USC Trojans football team
27. [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=CpwLAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mlQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=3979,4802699 Stanford Likely to Pick Norton's Powerful Eleven], ''[[The Evening Independent]]'', November 14, 1940.
28. On December 1, Stanford accepted its invitation to represent the Pacific coast in the [[1941 Rose Bowl]], and [[1940 Nebraska Cornhuskers football team
29. [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=F8YVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Qg4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=4202,203245 Stanford is Choice to Defeat Nebraska in Rose Bowl Today], ''[[The Milwaukee Sentinel]]'', p. 4B, January 1, 1941.
30. The game was attended by 91,300 spectators and each team was paid $140,916 for its participation.[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=b70KAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jU0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=3810,333370 Figures on Bowl Games], ''[[St. Petersburg Times]]'', January 3, 1941.
31. [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=br0KAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jU0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=3625,228431 Stanford Trims Nebraska, 21-13], ''[[St. Petersburg Times]]'', January 1, 1941.
32. [[Frank Albert]] was named a consensus [[1940 College Football All-America Team. 1-4013-3703-1.
33. "1941 NFL Draft".
34. "1942 NFL Draft".