First-year head coach Clark Shaughnessy inherited a team that finished with a 1–7–1 record the previous season.
[3] The Indians shocked observers when they won all ten of their games including the Rose Bowl, which prompted several selectors to declare them the 1940 national champions.
[3] Shaugnessy, however, incorporated several new features in his own version of the T. It utilized flankers and the man-in-motion concept,[11] and it emphasized deception and quickness over the brute force necessitated by the wing formations.
[14] Instead of remaining at Chicago, where he also held a position as a professor and earned a comfortable salary of $10,000 per year, Shaughnessy elected to continue coaching football, which he described as his hobby and passion.
Clark Shaughnessy, who coached the University of Chicago football team to dismal defeat and eventual extinction, is now leading an unbeaten, untied Stanford eleven toward the nation's greatest gridiron glory.
[18] In attendance was their next opponents' head coach, Tex Oliver of Oregon, and he said, "Half of the time neither we or the spectators knew who was the ballcarrier until someone would dart out from the sidelines with the pigskin under his arms... and it was probably quarterback Frank Albert.
"[19] Oliver added, "If we expect to stop their attack, we'll have to work fast", and immediately returned home to conduct intense practices in preparation for Stanford.
[19] The extra preparation did not halt the Stanford attack, however, and according to Harold Parrott in The Milwaukee Journal, "the duped Webfoots chased phantom ball carriers all over the field.
"[20] After defeating Washington State at home, 26–14,[18] Stanford met the defending Pacific Coast Conference (PCC) champions, Southern California.
[18] Washington, the only other team with a perfect Pacific Coast Conference record, led Stanford by a touchdown at half time.
[22] After beating Oregon State, 28–14,[18] Stanford traveled to Berkeley to face California in the annual rivalry, the "Big Game".
The Indians defeated the Bears, 13–7,[18] to guarantee a Rose Bowl invitation in lieu of Washington, which despite losing to Stanford head-to-head, had beaten UCLA more convincingly, 41–0.
[23][24] In the final Associated Press Poll, which was published on December 2 before the bowl games, Stanford was ranked second in the US behind Minnesota.
The drive culminated in a short rush by fullback Ike Francis, and with the extra point, the Cornhuskers took a 7–0 lead on the first possession.
In the third quarter, the Indians drove 76 yards to within inches of the opposing goal line, but the Cornhusker defense held and took over on downs.
"[15] The 1940 Stanford Indians, who became known as the "Wow Boys",[3][b] proved the value of the T formation, and in response, football coaches around the nation adopted it for their own teams.