Bill Jennings (American football)
| File:Bill Jennings (American football).jpg
Jennings from 1960 Cornhusker
|
|
| Sport(s) | Football |
|---|---|
| Biographical details | |
| Born | March 13, 1918 |
| Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Lawrence, Kansas |
| Playing career | |
| 1938–1940 | Oklahoma |
| Position(s) | End, wingback |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1941 | Cushing HS (OK) |
| 1947–1953 | Oklahoma (backfield) |
| 1956 | Nebraska (backfield) |
| 1957–1961 | Nebraska |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 15–34–1 (college) |
William A. "Bill" Jennings (March 13, 1918 – June 8, 2002) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln from 1957 to 1961. He coached the Nebraska Cornhuskers for five losing seasons, compiling a 15–34–1 record (.310). His best seasons were 1959 and 1960, when the Huskers were 4–6 in each year. His conference record was 8–24 (.250) and his Husker teams never won more than two conference games in a season.
Among Jennings's most notable upsets was the ending of Bud Wilkinson's 74-straight conference victories. The Cornhuskers beat the Oklahoma Sooners, 25–21, at Nebraska's 1959 homecoming game on Halloween. Jennings followed up a second consecutive win the following year with a 17–14 victory in Norman. The 1959 win was the first for Nebraska since 1942, and the 1959 and 1960 wins were the first consecutive victories over the Sooners since 1939 through 1942.[1]
After a 3–6–1 season in 1961, Jennings was succeeded by Bob Devaney, who had been successful with Wyoming. Devaney immediately turned the Nebraska program around, winning with numerous players recruited by Jennings. The 1962 Huskers went 8–2 in the regular season and won the Gotham Bowl, Nebraska's first bowl game appearance in eight years and the first of 41 consecutive winning seasons.
Jennings died on June 8, 2002 at the age of 84 at his home in Lawrence, Kansas after suffering from prostate cancer.[2]
Head coaching record
| Year | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Bowl/playoffs | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nebraska Cornhuskers (Big Seven / Big Eight Conference) (1957–1961) | |||||||||
| 1957 | Nebraska | 1–9 | 1–5 | 7th | |||||
| 1958 | Nebraska | 3–7 | 1–5 | 6th | |||||
| 1959 | Nebraska | 4–6 | 2–4 | 6th | |||||
| 1960 | Nebraska | 4–6 | 2–5 | T–6th | |||||
| 1961 | Nebraska | 3–6–1 | 2–5 | T–6th | |||||
| Nebraska: | 15–34–1 | 8–24 | |||||||
| Total: | 15–34–1 | ||||||||
References
- ↑ http://espn.go.com/classic/s/ou_neb_record.html ESPN Classic: Oklahoma vs. Nebraska -- Series record
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
<templatestyles src="Asbox/styles.css"></templatestyles>
 |
This biographical article relating to a college football coach first appointed in the 1950s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
- Pages with broken file links
- 1918 births
- 2002 deaths
- American football ends
- Nebraska Cornhuskers football coaches
- Oklahoma Sooners football coaches
- Oklahoma Sooners football players
- High school football coaches in the United States
- Sportspeople from Norman, Oklahoma
- Players of American football from Oklahoma
- College football coaches first appointed in the 1950s stubs
.jpg){kind=link}