Commish here, if you’ve followed us long enough on our main twitter account, you know we’re absolutely fascinated with the safety. It’s the one thing we really promise to deliver to you at anytime on our Sickos Committee twitter account. We tweet out “SAFETY ALERT” anytime we see a safety occur because we just love them so much and they are the rarest of the rare scoring play in the game of football. (yes we’re including the 1-point safety in this statement too).

Of course it’s a long off-season and I started exploring safeties as the leader of the Sickos Committee does from time to time. This time, I wanted to know how many games finished where the team only scored a safety. I began to dig and sort through the depths of Sports-Reference.com. Another committee member, the master spreadsheeter Kevin, joined me on this journey in the depths of the safety exploration. According to Sports-Reference.com, there have been 460 times in the history of college football where a team has only managed to score a safety (there could be more times but this is what we could find). Deep in the spreadsheet mines, Kevin alerted me to a day unlike any other in college football history. A fateful day where four different teams could only manage to score a safety and I want to tell the story of the safeties that occurred on that day.

October 17th, 1942

The United States was in the middle of World War II but college football continued to be played back at home. Let’s explore the games where four different teams could only manage to score a safety. I’ll try to give as much information as I can on each of these games as information is not readily searchable online for all of these games.

Minnesota 15 - Nebraska 2

In 1941, Minnesota won the National Title. The 1942 season for the Golden Gophers didn’t start so well. Their head coach Bernie Bierman left the team and became the head coach of the Iowa Pre-Flight Seahawks. Minnesota just so happened to face their old coach in the second game of the season and lost a close one 7-6. In fact, the Gophers lost 2 out of their first 3 games and had to travel to Lincoln. Oddly enough due to the AP not ranking teams until a few weeks into the season, Minnesota was put at #14 in the AP Poll at 1-2. Nebraska was not much of a football powerhouse yet and they stumbled out of the gate also 1-2. Nebraska had been shut out in both of their losses on the year.

Minnesota took a 9-0 into the 3rd Quarter after getting a safety of their own in the first quarter on a blocked punt. Nebraska duplicated the Gopher feat in the 3rd quarter and blocked a kick for a safety and their only points of the game. Love these drive charts from the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune and Star Journal.

It appears we were lucky a questionable call downed the Nebraska punt at the 1 foot line and it led to the blocked punt and safety, the only points for Nebraska on this day. This was lamented by the Minnesota paper.

Missouri 46 - Kansas State 2

Missouri was well on their way to win the Big Six (later Big 8) conference title and Kansas State was on their way to a 3-8 season. The Missouri Tigers set a record score at the time in this game, a record of the most points scored in Kansas State stadium history.

Looking at the game, it wasn’t a close one. Missouri dominated the Wildcats and was shutting them out until the 4th quarter.

However, Kansas State was able to earn a safety in the final quarter. The Wildcats were looking to score a touchdown but were stopped on downs.

However, the Tigers fumbled and Kansas State scored a safety for their only points of the day.

TCU 7 - Texas A&M 2

The 1942 TCU Horned Frogs were off to a hot start. They were 3-0 and were ranked 17th heading to the match-up with the 1-2 Aggies.

This one is probably my favorite safety occurring on this day. The Aggies got on the scoreboard first and took a 2-0 lead due to a botched double reverse by TCU. The Horned Frogs called a double reverse on their own 14 yard line. Those mad men!!

TCU then shut down the Aggies for the rest of the game. TCU cashed in the game winning touchdown after an interception in the middle of the 3rd quarter to make the score 7-2, which would ultimately be the final score.

Dartmouth 14 - Harvard 2

Dartmouth ventured to Boston to play the Crimson before 26,000 people. Apparently it was a renewal of the “ICY” League Classic. Did I just find a typo in the Minneapolis Star from 1942 for this substack post? Yes I did.

Apparently this game was a kicking a field position battle with Harvard having the upper hand in the first half. However, in the 2nd Quarter, Harvard’s field position prowess paid off with Dartmouth just simply taking a safety on what appears to be on a 3rd down.

Dartmouth completed a second half comeback with a touchdown in the 3rd Quarter and the 4th Quarter to seal the victory!

I hope you enjoyed reading this and if anyone asks you for a weird College Football fact, just tell them Harvard, Nebraska, Kansas State and Texas A&M all were only able to score a safety on the same day, October 17th, 1942.