The 1951 Western Illinois Leathernecks 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

Western Illinois University Western Illinois University (WIU) is a public university in Macomb, Illinois. It was founded in 1899 as Western Illinois State Normal School. As the normal school grew, it became Western Illinois State Teachers College. History Western Illin ...

as a member of the

Interstate Intercollegiate Athletic Conference The Interstate Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) was a college athletic conference that existed from 1908 to 1970 in the United States. At one time the Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, or IIAC, was a robust league that clai ...

(IIAC) during the

1951 college football season The 1951 college football season finished with seven unbeaten major college teams, of which five were unbeaten and untied. Ultimately, the Tennessee Volunteers were voted the best team by the Associated Press, followed by the Michigan State Sparta ...

. Led by third-year head coach

Vince DiFrancesca Vincent DiFrancesca (January 1, 1922 – May 21, 2007) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head football coach at Western Illinois University from 1949 to 1953, at Iowa State University from 1954 to 1956, and at Carroll Col ...

, the Leathernecks compiled an overall record of 7–1–1 with a mark of 4–1–1 in conference play, placing second in the IIAC.

Schedule

References

Western Illinois Forgottonia (), also spelled Forgotonia, is the name given to a 16-County (United States), county region in Western Illinois in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This geographic region forms the distinctive western bulge of Illinois (area west of ...

Western Illinois Leathernecks football seasons

Western Illinois Leathernecks football The Western Illinois Leathernecks football program is the intercollegiate American football team for Western Illinois University located in Macomb, Illinois. The team competes in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) and a ...

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