The 1948 Idaho Vandals football team represented the
University of Idaho
The University of Idaho (U of I, or UIdaho) is a public land-grant research university in Moscow, Idaho. It is the state's land-grant and primary research university,, and the lead university in the Idaho Space Grant Consortium. The Universit ...
in the
1948 college football season
The 1948 college football season finished with two unbeaten and untied teams: Michigan and Clemson. Michigan was the first-place choice for the majority of the voters (192 of 333) in the AP Poll, but did not play in the postseason because of a no ...
. The
Vandals
The Vandals were a Germanic peoples, Germanic people who first inhabited what is now southern Poland. They established Vandal Kingdom, Vandal kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula, Mediterranean islands, and North Africa in the fifth century.
The ...
were led by second-year head coach
Dixie Howell
Millard Fleming "Dixie" Howell (November 24, 1912 – March 2, 1971) was an American football and baseball player and coach. He played college football as a halfback at the University of Alabama from 1932 to 1934 and with the Washington Redski ...
and were members of the
Pacific Coast Conference
The Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) was a college athletic conference in the United States which existed from 1915 to 1959. Though the Pac-12 Conference claims the PCC's history as part of its own, with eight of the ten PCC members (including a ...
.
Idaho was ranked at No. 90 in the final
Litkenhous Difference by Score System ratings for 1948.
Home games were played on campus at
Neale Stadium
Neale Stadium was an outdoor athletic stadium in the northwest United States, located on the campus of the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. Opened in 1937 for college football, it was used for over three decades, through the 1968 football s ...
in
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
, with one game in
Boise
Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown area' ...
at
Public School Field.
Idaho was overall and won one of their six PCC games; future schedules had fewer conference matchups. A night game was played in late September in
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...
, a loss to
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
.
The Vandals' losing streak in the
Battle of the Palouse
The Battle of the Palouse refers to an athletic rivalry in the northwest United States, between the Vandals of the University of Idaho and Cougars of Washington State University.
The two land-grant universities are less than apart on the rur ...
with neighbor
Washington State
Washington (), officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. Named for George Washington—the first U.S. president—the state was formed from the western part of the Washington ...
reached twenty games, with a loss in Pullman on October 30.
Idaho tied the Cougars
two years later, but the winless streak continued
In the rivalry game with
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
in Moscow a week earlier, Idaho won to regain the
Little Brown Stein
The Little Brown Stein is a rivalry trophy awarded to the winner of the college football game between the University of Idaho Vandals and the University of Montana Grizzlies. The trophy is, as the name implies, a large stein mug with the results ...
.
Montana won it back
two years later with a one-point then the Vandals won eight straight, through
1959
Events January
* January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
.
Schedule
Coaching staff
* Ben Enis, line
* Gene Harlow, guards
* Perron Shoemaker, ends
*
Steve Belko, freshmen
All-conference
No Vandals were named to the All-Coast team; honorable mention were tackles Carl Kiilsgaard and Will Overgaard, guard Wilbur Ruleman, and back John Brogan.
NFL Draft
Two juniors from the 1948 Vandals were selected in the
1950 NFL Draft:
Three sophomores were selected in the
1951 NFL draft:
References
External links
''Gem of the Mountains:'' 1949 University of Idaho yearbook– 1948 football season
Go Mighty Vandals– 1948 football season
Official game program: Idaho at Washington State– October 30, 1948
– student newspaper – 1948 editions
{{Idaho Vandals football navbox
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
Idaho Vandals football seasons
Idaho Vandals football
The Idaho Vandals are the college football team that represents the University of Idaho and plays its home games at the Kibbie Dome, an indoor facility on campus in Moscow, Idaho. Idaho is a member of the Big Sky Conference in the Football Cham ...