Nebraska Cornhuskers


The Nebraska Cornhuskers are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The university is a member of the Big Ten Conference and competes in NCAA Division I, fielding twenty-four varsity teams in sixteen sports, with one more women's sport to be added in the 2027–28 school year. Twenty-one of these teams participate in the Big Ten, while beach volleyball, bowling, and rifle compete as independents or affiliate members of other conferences. The Cornhuskers are commonly referred to as the "Big Red" and have two official mascots, Herbie Husker and Lil' Red.
Nebraska was a founding member of the short-lived Western Interstate University Football Association, one of college football's first conferences, in 1892, and helped form the Missouri Intercollegiate Athletic Association fifteen years later. The MVIAA, which became the Big Eight in 1964, served as Nebraska's primary conference for the next eighty-nine years, with a brief hiatus during World War I. In 1996, the Big Eight merged with four Texas schools from the Southwest Conference to form the Big 12. Nebraska joined the Big Ten in 2011, a lucrative transition that separated the school from most of its traditional rivals.
Nebraska's varsity athletic programs have won thirty-two national championships and 359 combined conference regular-season and tournament championships.

Nickname

The University of Nebraska did not have a nickname or mascot during its early decades, though many were used unofficially. NU's first football team wore gold and black and became known as the "Old Gold Knights," but it is unclear if the term was used contemporarily. In 1892, The Hesperian Student urged the adoption of new colors due to the number of universities – specifically WIUFA rivals Iowa and Missouri – already using gold or yellow, and selected scarlet and cream as they were considered "bright and attractive." Throughout the 1890s the team may have gone by "Antelopes" and "Rattlesnake Boys," but the most well-known of Nebraska's early nicknames is "Bugeaters," a reference to the state's meager food supply during an 1870s drought when farmers purportedly resorted to eating bugs. Many Nebraskans appreciated the rugged characterization despite its negative connotations.
The first documented use of "Cornhuskers" appeared in the March 17, 1894 issue of The Sporting News, in reference to a Western League baseball team from Sioux City that later became the Chicago White Sox. Six months later, the term appeared in The Hesperian Student ; it was used as a derisive reference to Iowa and not as an athletic nickname. Nebraska State Journal sportswriter and state native Cy Sherman hated the Bugeaters moniker and began using "Cornhuskers," which wasn't applied to Nebraska until Sherman did so in 1899. It caught on quickly and was adopted by the university in 1900, and later by the state of Nebraska itself, which became "The Cornhusker State" in 1946. Sherman is known as "the father of the Cornhuskers" and later founded college football's AP poll.

Varsity sports

Baseball

Nebraska established a baseball program in 1889, making it the school's oldest active varsity sport. The team was disjointed in its first decades, often disbanding for years at a time. The hiring of Tony Sharpe in 1947 brought stability but limited success – Sharpe and his successor John Sanders combined to lead fifty-one seasons, making just three postseason appearances. Dave Van Horn was hired in 1998 and established a national power, culminating in Nebraska's first College World Series appearances in 2001 and 2002, a landmark moment for a state that has hosted the event since 1950. Assistant Mike Anderson took over for Van Horn and led NU to its best-ever season, finishing 57–15 and reaching another College World Series in 2005. Anderson did not sustain this success and was fired in 2011, the same year Nebraska transitioned to the Big Ten. NU has experienced little national success since joining the conference.
Nebraska has been to eighteen NCAA Division I tournaments and three College World Series. Sixteen players have been named first-team All-Americans and Alex Gordon won the 2005 Golden Spikes Award as the country's best amateur player. Nebraska plays its home games at Hawks Field at Haymarket Park, built in 2001 to replace the aging Buck Beltzer Stadium.
  • Conference championships : 1929, 1948, 1950, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2017, 2021
  • Conference tournament championships : 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2024
  • College World Series appearances : 2001, 2002, 2005

    Basketball

;Men
Prior to the creation of the NCAA tournament, Nebraska was a Midwest power under head coaches Raymond G. Clapp and Ewald O. Stiehm. NU struggled through the post-World War II years, which included a stretch of twenty-eight years with just two winning seasons that stretched into the 1960s. Much of the team's modest modern-day success came during the fourteen-year tenure of Danny Nee, Nebraska's winningest head coach. Nee led the Cornhuskers to five of their eight NCAA Division I tournament appearances and won the 1996 National Invitation Tournament, NU's first national postseason title. Nebraska has reached the NCAA tournament just twice since Nee was fired in 2000. In 2019, NU hired former Chicago Bulls head coach Fred Hoiberg, who led the Cornhuskers to the inaugural College Basketball Crown championship in 2025.
Nebraska's men's and women's basketball teams have played at West Haymarket Arena since its construction in 2013.
  • Conference championships : 1912, 1913, 1914, 1916, 1949, 1950
  • Conference tournament championships : 1994
;Women
Nebraska's women's basketball history began with a short-lived club team in the early 1900; the program was shuttered until the 1972 enactment of Title IX. Angela Beck took Nebraska to its first NCAA Division I tournament and won the 1988 Big Eight championship. Under Beck, Karen Jennings won the Wade Trophy as the country's best player in 1992–93.
Connie Yori, hired from Creighton in 2002, steadily built a national contender, culminating in a 2009–10 season that was the best in school history – NU started 30–0 and became the first Big 12 team to complete an undefeated regular season. Kelsey Griffin was a national player of the year finalist and Yori was named national coach of the year. Forward Jordan Hooper led Nebraska into the Big Ten and earned first-team All-America honors in 2013–14, the same season NU won its first conference tournament. Yori was forced to resign after an administrative investigation in 2016, and Nebraska turned to former player Amy Williams to lead the program.
  • Conference championships : 1988, 2010
  • Conference tournament championships : 2014

    Bowling

Nebraska's bowling program was founded as a club team in 1983 and became a varsity sport in 1997. It is the most successful collegiate program in bowling history, winning eleven national championships and qualifying for every NCAA championship. Most of this success came under Bill Straub, who coached for thirty-six years and granted the first full scholarships in bowling history. The team has been coached by longtime assistant Paul Klempa since Straub's retirement in 2019.
Bowling competes in Conference USA, making it one of three programs at Nebraska not affiliated with the Big Ten.
  • WIBC / NCAA 'championships': 1991, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2013, 2015, 2021

    Cross country

Nebraska's men's cross country team was established in 1938, winning its only conference championship two years later. The women's program was established in 1975. Megan Elliott has coached both teams since 2024.
  • Men's conference championships : 1940
  • Women's conference championships : 1985, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1993

    Flag football

The newest Nebraska varsity sport is women's flag football, a limited-contact form of American football that became part of the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program on January 16, 2026. On that same day, Nebraska announced it would add the sport in the 2027–28 school year, becoming the first power conference member to commit to adding the sport.

Football

Nebraska is among the most storied programs in college football history, winning forty-six conference championships and five national championships, along with seven unclaimed national titles. Its 1971 and 1995 teams are considered among the best ever. Heisman Trophy winners Johnny Rodgers, Mike Rozier, and Eric Crouch join twenty-four other Cornhuskers in the College Football Hall of Fame. Nebraska has played its home games at Memorial Stadium since 1923 and sold out every game at the venue since 1962.
The program's first extended period of success came early in the twentieth century. Between 1900 and 1916, Nebraska had five undefeated seasons and a stretch of thirty-four games without a loss. The Cornhuskers won twenty-four conference championships prior to World War II but struggled through the postwar years until Bob Devaney was hired in 1962. Devaney built Nebraska into a national power, winning two national championships and eight conference titles in eleven seasons as head coach. Offensive coordinator Tom Osborne was named Devaney's successor in 1973 and over the next twenty-five years established himself as one of the best coaches in college football history with his trademark I formation offense and revolutionary strength, conditioning, and nutrition programs. Following Osborne's retirement in 1997, Nebraska cycled through five head coaches before hiring Matt Rhule in 2023.
  • Conference championships : 1894, 1895, 1897, 1907, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1928, 1929, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1940, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1978, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1999
  • National championships : 1915, 1970, 1971, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997
;Flag football
Nebraska will add women's flag football as the school's twenty-fifth varsity sport in 2028, the first school from a power conference to do so.