The 1948 New Hampshire Wildcats football team was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

team that represented the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, mo ...

as a member of the

Yankee Conference The Yankee Conference was a collegiate sports conference in the eastern United States. From 1947 to 1976, it sponsored competition in many sports, but was a football-only league from mid-1976 until its dissolution in 1996. It is essentially the an ...

during 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 ...

. In its third year under head coach

Bill Glassford James William Glassford (March 8, 1914 – September 19, 2016) was an American football player and coach, who served as Head coach (American football), head coach for the New Hampshire Wildcats football, New Hampshire Wildcats and Nebraska Cornhu ...

, the team compiled a 5–3 record (3–1 against conference opponents), outscoring opponents 155–103. This was the first year that the rivalry game between New Hampshire and Maine saw a

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually d ...

presented to the winning team—the musket was "donated by

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

alumni of the two institutions". The "

Battle for the Brice-Cowell Musket A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...

" takes its name from former head coaches of the two programs;

Fred Brice Fred Mansfield Brice (December 6, 1887 – January 10, 1967) was an American football, basketball, and baseball coach. Brice served as the head football coach at the University of Maine from 1921 to 1940, compiling a record of 79–58–9 and ...

who coached at Maine (1921–1940) and

Butch Cowell William Harold "Butch" Cowell (July 21, 1887 – August 28, 1940) was an American football player and coach of football, basketball, and baseball. He is best known for his tenure as head coach of the New Hampshire Wildcats football team from 1 ...

who coached at New Hampshire (1915–1936). New Hampshire was ranked at No. 246 in the final Litkenhous Difference by Score System ratings for 1948. The team played its home games at

Lewis Field Boone Pickens Stadium (previously known as Lewis Field) has been home to the Oklahoma State University Cowboys football team in rudimentary form since 1919, and as a complete stadium since 1920. Aligned in an east-west direction since 1920, th ...

(also known as Lewis Stadium) in

Durham, New Hampshire Durham is a town in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 15,490 at the 2020 census, up from 14,638 at the 2010 census.United States Census BureauU.S. Census website 2010 Census figures. Retrieved March 23, 2011. D ...

Schedule

References

{{Yankee Conference football champions

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

New Hampshire Wildcats football seasons Yankee Conference football champion seasons

New Hampshire Wildcats football The New Hampshire Wildcats football program is the intercollegiate American football team for the University of New Hampshire located in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. The Wildcats compete in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivis ...