The 1952 Illinois Fighting Illini 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 Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

during the 1952 Big Ten Conference football season. In their 11th year under head coach

Ray Eliot Raymond Eliot "Butch" Nusspickel (June 13, 1905 – February 24, 1980) was an American football and baseball player, coach, and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at Illinois College from 1934 to 1936 and at th ...

, the Illini compiled a 4–5 record and finished in a three-way tie for sixth place in the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

. Halfback

Al Brosky Alfred E. Brosky (June 9, 1928 – November 28, 2010) was an American football player, and is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Brosky played football at the University of Illinois from 1950 to 1952. He wa ...

was selected as the team's most valuable player.

Schedule

Games summaries

Iowa

Following the win at Iowa, which was full of penalties and a couple of ejections for fighting, Iowa students began to throw fruit, cans, and bottles at the officials and Illinois' team as they left the field. One Iowa student was also punched by an Illinois player in the melee. Illinois and Iowa were not scheduled to play in 1953 and 1954, but their athletic directors decided to expand that timeline to 1958 in order to allow for a "cooling-off" period. That time frame was eventually extended until 1967, which created a 14-season gap in the series between the conference schools.http://www.winsipedia.com/games/illinois/vs/iowa Illinois vs. Iowa All-Time. ''Winsipedia''.

References

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 ...

Illinois Fighting Illini football seasons

Illinois Fighting Illini football The Illinois Fighting Illini football program represents the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) level. The Fighting Illini are a founding member of ...

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