The 100 Club -- filling in the blanks
Posted by: Brian Christopherson on May 17, 2012 at 4:11PM CSTIn today's paper, I asked for someone to save the day. Maybe someone out there knew of the
91-yard white whale that was eluding us in our
100 Club touchdown series.
We got an answer from our friend Joe Hudson of HuskerMax.com.
Hudson, who once worked at the Lincoln Star, appears to have filled in some blanks, locating a 91-yard fumble return by Jack Dodd against Minnesota in 1938.
As the university yearbook,
the 1939 Cornhusker, described it: Dodd provided the thrill of the day when he "whisked the ball" away from a Gopher and set off the other way for a score.Two other newspaper accounts confirm the Dodd return as 91 yards.
It would be Nebraska's only points that day, falling in defeat 16-7.
But we thank Dodd for his thievery. It gives us a 91-yarder.
*** Hudson also dug into the archives and found what appears to be 96- and 97-yard Husker touchdowns from that same era.
In fact, the 96-yard touchdown Hudson found also comes from 1938 --
a kickoff return by Herm Rohrig against Missouri. Nebraska lost the game 13-10.
That 1938 Biff Jones-coached team finished the season with just a 3-5-1 record.
As for
the 97-yarder? It belongs to a name familiar to Husker lore. Sam Francis apparently had a kickoff return of that distance in the 1936 season opener against Iowa State.
"Fullback Sam Francis began his rise to national recognition and All American honors in the opening game when he assumed the unaccustomed role of open-field runner to make the longest touchdown of the season," recorded The Cornhusker yearbook of that return.
We send our thanks to Joe Hudson for finding those. The list -- more complete now -- marches on tomorrow with our 90-yarder.