The 1952 Santa Clara Broncos 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 Santa Clara Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...

as an independent during the

1952 college football season The 1952 college football season ended with the unbeaten Michigan State Spartans (9–0) and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (12–0) each claiming a national championship from different polls. Michigan State finished first according to two of the "w ...

. In their third season under head coach

Richard F. Gallagher Richard F. Gallagher (October 28, 1909 – March 29, 1995) was a baseball, basketball and American football coach and administrator who served as an assistant with the Cleveland Browns and Chicago Cardinals of the National Football League in the ...

, the

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

Broncos compiled a 2–6–1 record and were outscored 182 to 80. Their three home games were played off campus in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, Lodi, and

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

. A month after the season ended, Rev. Herman J. Hauck, president of the university, announced on December 29 that the football program was being dropped. The state's other major college football programs at Catholic institutions, all NCAA independents, had recently been halted: Saint Mary's after the 1950 season and

and Loyola after

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United ...

. Father Hauck stated that the football program had lost substantial money in the previous two seasons; other sources put the losses at $80,000 in 1952 and $72,000 in

. By early 1954, there was already support for reviving the program, which returned for the 1959 season.

Schedule

References

{{Santa Clara Broncos football navbox Santa Clara Santa Clara Broncos football seasons

Santa Clara Broncos football The Santa Clara Broncos football program was the intercollegiate American football team for Santa Clara University located in Santa Clara, California. Santa Clara played its first football game against St. Mary's College in San Francisco in 1 ...