Creighton Football

[Coyote]

History of Creighton football:
Its involvement in WWII and the war's impact on the program's collapse



The Husker football team is about to kick off the 2023 season. Eighty-one years ago, another university in the Cornhusker State was kicking off its season, which turned out to be its last. “Come look at this team that sort of paused during WWII, right? It’s sort of like a little time capsule,” Pete Brink said. Brink is the Head of Archives and Special Collections at Creighton Libraries. He served as 3 News Now Anchor Zach Williamson’s tour guide through 52 years of Creighton football. The two flipped through several old programs.

“So, this is Creighton versus Marquette. They did play Oklahoma in 1928. I don’t know the outcome of that game — let’s hope Creighton won,” he shared. Another collection that caught Zach’s eye was a 1939 pamphlet advertising season tickets to Creighton home games: six home games for $6.60. The home games in 1939, along with 16 other seasons, took place at Creighton Stadium. “In the middle of a real residential neighborhood; so, it’s neat to see those older photos and imagine what it looked like then,” Brink said.

The stadium was south of Burt Street; located by where the Eppley Building, Criss Complex and parking lot now stand. It was one of Omaha’s largest structures at the time and could hold up to 15,000 fans. The stadium opened on Nov. 21, 1925. It would host Creighton’s final game on the gridiron 17 years later. “This is the football and the game program from the 1942 Creighton versus Tulsa game,” Brink showed Zach. “Which was the last football game ever played by the Creighton Bluejays.”

[Busguy2010]

I could root for them if they were around today. It would be nice to have an option other than the Huskers and an in state rivalry in football. Fun to think about where they'd rank nationally. If the basketball team can make noise, I'm sure a football team could. Technically if they wanted to, there's already a pretty big stadium nearby that doesn't get a lot of use