The 1898 Minnesota Golden Gophers football team represented the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in the

1898 Western Conference football season The 1898 Western Conference football season was the third season of college football played by the member schools of the Western Conference (later known as the Big Ten Conference) and was a part of the 1898 college football season. The 1898 Mi ...

. In their first and only season under head coach Jack Minds, the Golden Gophers compiled a 4–5 record (1–2 against Western Conference opponents), finished in fifth place in the conference, and outscored their opponents by a combined total of 92 to 73. The 1898 season for Minnesota was one of adversity, including bad weather and a mid-season injury to the team's captain. Coach Jack Minds was a fullback and kicker at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. On Thanksgiving Day 1898, Minnesota and

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

played a football game for the first time in the two programs' history. A big storm had come through the previous day, but John Pillsbury (the student manager) put together a crew and worked overnight using horse-drawn plows to clear the field. The game itself was delayed several times when the ball was lost in snow drifts on the side of the field and the temperature fell to about 10 below zero when the game was called at noon. Illinois won the game 11–10.

Schedule

Personnel

Players

* Aune - guard * Bernhagen - halfback * Cameron - halfback * Kienholtz - quarterback * Nicoulin - tackle * Otte - tackle * Page - center * Parry - guard * Harry "Buz" Scandrett - captain, end, and elected captain for 1899 * Shepley - fullback * von Schlegell - end

Staff

* Jack Minds - coachThe Gopher 1900, p. 273. * John Wirtensohn - trainer * G.S. Phelps - football managerThe Gopher 1900, p. 272.

References

{{Minnesota Golden Gophers football navbox

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

Minnesota Golden Gophers football seasons

Gophers Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They are ...