1895 Nebraska Bugeaters football team

The 1895 Nebraska Bugeaters football team was the representative of the University of Nebraska in the 1895 college football season. The team was coached by Charles Thomas and played their home games at the "M" Street Park in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Nebraska's football team began its history as the "Old Gold Knights", and was also sometimes known as the "Tree Planters", "Nebraskans", "The Rattlesnake Boys", "Red Stockings", "Antelopes" or "Goldenrods" in their early years.

Before the season
Head Coach Thomas had been promoted from Assistant Head Coach following the departure of Frank Crawford at the conclusion of the 1894 season. Nebraska was coming off of their first ever conference title season and ready to try to repeat the accomplishment. The roster grew again, increasing from 24 to 30 players for the 1895 season.

Sioux City AC
Nebraska's road trip to Sioux City, Iowa, was the longest road trip in the program's young history, but much longer trips were on the agenda for later in the year. This tune up game to open the season for the Bugeaters was never in doubt, as the Sioux City Athletic Club squad was shut out with a 0-38 loss. At the time it was the most points ever scored by Nebraska and the largest margin of victory by Nebraska, beating the records set the previous season in Nebraska's 36-0 defeat of Iowa.

Butte AC
By far the longest road trip Nebraska had undertaken to date, the Bugeaters traveled well over 1,000 miles to Butte, Montana to face the Butte Athletic Club. Although by this time there were railroads connecting much of the American Old West, it was still early enough in the nation's history that the Oregon Trail was still in use. Butte AC's ball control game plan worked effectively to keep the Bugeaters from scoring opportunities, as Nebraska had only one possession in the game's first twenty minutes, and Butte was ahead 12-0 by the half. Nebraska outscored Butte 6-4 in the 2nd half, but that was not enough to overcome the early deficit.

Denver AC
The third meeting of these teams was much less acrimonious than the previous, violent 1893 meeting, which featured high emotions that eventually resulted in Denver's choosing to quit the contest and forfeit. Denver's game play this time was less disciplined than in the past, and the running game established by the Bugeaters was more than enough to put away the Denver Athletic Club and improve Nebraska's record over them to 2-1.

Omaha
This was the first and only meeting between the Bugeaters and Omaha University Club, playing for the school which would eventually become the University of Nebraska at Omaha. The contest was never in doubt as Nebraska led by 12 after the half and then ran off another 24 unanswered points to close out the 36-0 win.

Missouri
Nebraska traveled to Omaha to meet the Hawkeyes to open the 1895 conference slate. A game of well-matched squad produced a 6-10 deficit for the Bugeaters by the half, but Nebraska was able to shut down Missouri in the second half while putting one more touchdown in. Nebraska's win brought the series between these teams to a 2-2 tie.

University of Missouri records indicate the final score of this game was a 12-0 Nebraska victory.

Kansas
Nebraska failed to cash in on several opportunities to score in the first half, and both teams settled for a scoreless first half. The Jayhawks and Bugeaters then traded single touchdowns and missed field kicks to tie it up at 4-4. Near the end of the game, the Nebraska team apparently was confused about the time remaining to play and eased back on their defensive effort, a mistake that proved costly as Kansas took advantage of the pullback and scored another touchdown to win. Nebraska fell farther behind in the series with Kansas, to 1-3.

Doane
Nebraska traveled to Crete to meet Doane for the 7th time, and the event was entirely one-sided as the Bugeaters had little trouble putting 24 points on the board and handing Doane yet another loss as Nebraska improved to 5-2 in the series. Undefeated against other Nebraska-based teams for the season, the Bugeaters recorded their third state championship.

Grinnell
In what seemed a complete reversal of fortunes from Nebraska's previous game, the Bugeaters seemed poised to another easy win over Grinnell after their shutout victory from last year, but it was Grinnell who notched the shutout, reversing the score of Nebraska's 24-0 win the previous week and handing the Bugeaters a 0-24 road shutout. This brought the series between these teams to a 1-1 tie.

Iowa
The Nebraska-Iowa contest, now an annual Thanksgiving Day event, was a defensive struggle that kept points off the board until Nebraska's single second half touchdown and following field kick. Nebraska now owned a 3-win streak over Iowa while improving the series record to 3-1-1. The Bugeaters victory combined with the defeat of Kansas by Missouri, resulted in a three way conference tie for first place by winning record. However, the tie-breaking system at that time, to determine to whom the conference pennant was awarded, settled ties by points allowed. In this regard, Nebraska was rated third among the title winners.

University of Iowa records indicate that this game was played November 19.

After the season
Nebraska once again claimed a portion of the conference title, and also once again lost their head coach as Thomas departed to take the same position at the University of Arkansas. Thomas left Nebraska with his one-season record of 6-3 (.667), and Nebraska's overall record improved slightly to 21-11-2 (.647).