[Mick]

I thought this was interesting from the Wiki article about Shaughnessy:

Many Stanford alumni were upset with the decision to hire Shaughnessy. The most popular candidates for the vacant position were two Stanford alumni themselves: San Jose State coach Dudley DeGroot, and Santa Clara coach Buck Shaw. Some believed the Shaughnessy hiring was a ploy to eventually eliminate football at the school, as had happened at both Loyola and Chicago the year prior.[49] The Bay Area media mocked the Shaughnessy hiring as comically inept. They believed that a prestigious academic school had foolishly hired an inveterate loser as its head coach.[49] Prescott Sulivan of the San Francisco Examiner and Jack McDonald of the San Francisco Call-Bulletin coined the nickname "Soup" for Shaughnessy, which they sarcastically explained was a diminutive for the word "super".[49] Sullivan wrote, "We have heard it said that Shaughnessy has developed the knack of losing to the point where, with him, it is an exact science. In light of his record, we aren't at all surprised at this."[49] The Stanford players were also skeptical of Shaughnessy's abilities. Center Milt Vucinich said, "We'd been reading about all those beatings Shaughnessy's men had taken, so we were joking among ourselves that wasn't it just like Stanford to hire somebody like this to coach us."

Imagine what would have been said had there been a Cardboard in 1940!

Well, there's a little more to Loyola's and Chicago's story. Shaughnessey was 37-19 at Loyola and had five winning seasons out of six there. And he was 59-28 at Tulane. He did badly at Chicago because he was thrown to the wolves.

Chicago was in the Big 10 and their prior coach was Amos Alonzo Stagg, the inventor or co-inventor of the ends-back formation, the reverse, the 7-2-2 defense, the first football playbook with diagrams, first indoor game, first intersctional game, the huddle the center snap, the onside kick, the quick kick, the short punt, the spiral snap, the line shift, the lateral pass, tackling dummies, unbalanced lines, placement kicks, unbalanced line, the Notre Dame box, varsity letters, Statue of Liberty play, uniform numbers, the forward pass, the T Formation, the man in motion, the sleeper play, the linebacker position, the quarterback keeper, the delayed buck, numerical designations of plays, hip pads, padded goal posts, and the end-around. Suffice to say, he knew a little bit about football, Stagg was 1-4-2 in his first season, then had 17 consecutive winning seasons.

U of Chicago's leadership, specifically school President Robert Hutchins decided to eliminate football from the university.  It was a part of his plan to eliminate things from the school that would be a "distraction" to the student body and the professors. He hated the idea of an athlete being seen as a role model of any kind and he hated the popularity that footballers had gained around campus.  First, he eliminated the PE major.  Then, he forced Stagg to retire and prevented new coach Clark Shaughnessy from recruiting players. The cowardly Hutchins abolished football during Christmas break in 1939. He also eliminated fraternities and religious organizations.

The president of Loyola, a Jesuit named Robert Kelley, felt that the team was too popular and led to the general public attending games and showing interest, and that the celebrity of the athletes and focus on entertainment detracted from the amateur nature of the sport. So much like William Gianera at Santa Clara or William Dunne at USF, they unilaterally killed the sport.

BTW, DeGroot and Shaw were both extraordinary coaches that had superb records and would go on to coach in the NFL. Shaw was the only coach to beat Vince Lombardi in the postseason and beat LSU in two consecutive Sugar Bowls. DeGroot was 60-19-8 at SJSU, and his last three seasons were 11-2-1, 11-0-1 and 13-0, the last season SJSU had 8 shutouts and outscored opponents 324-29. Either Shaw or DeGroot would have been great coaches at Stanford. Minor edit: while DeGroot was a Stanford alum and an All American Center, Buck Shaw went to Creighton for a year and graduated from Notre Dame.

[Mick]

I thought this was interesting from the Wiki article about Shaughnessy:

Many Stanford alumni were upset with the decision to hire Shaughnessy. The most popular candidates for the vacant position were two Stanford alumni themselves: San Jose State coach Dudley DeGroot, and Santa Clara coach Buck Shaw. Some believed the Shaughnessy hiring was a ploy to eventually eliminate football at the school, as had happened at both Loyola and Chicago the year prior.[49] The Bay Area media mocked the Shaughnessy hiring as comically inept. They believed that a prestigious academic school had foolishly hired an inveterate loser as its head coach.[49] Prescott Sulivan of the San Francisco Examiner and Jack McDonald of the San Francisco Call-Bulletin coined the nickname "Soup" for Shaughnessy, which they sarcastically explained was a diminutive for the word "super".[49] Sullivan wrote, "We have heard it said that Shaughnessy has developed the knack of losing to the point where, with him, it is an exact science. In light of his record, we aren't at all surprised at this."[49] The Stanford players were also skeptical of Shaughnessy's abilities. Center Milt Vucinich said, "We'd been reading about all those beatings Shaughnessy's men had taken, so we were joking among ourselves that wasn't it just like Stanford to hire somebody like this to coach us."

Imagine what would have been said had there been a Cardboard in 1940!

Well, there's a little more to Loyola's and Chicago's story. Shaughnessey was 37-19 at Loyola and had five winning seasons out of six there. And he was 59-28 at Tulane. He did badly at Chicago because he was thrown to the wolves.

Chicago was in the Big 10 and their prior coach was Amos Alonzo Stagg, the inventor or co-inventor of the ends-back formation, the reverse, the 7-2-2 defense, the first football playbook with diagrams, first indoor game, first intersctional game, the huddle the center snap, the onside kick, the quick kick, the short punt, the spiral snap, the line shift, the lateral pass, tackling dummies, unbalanced lines, placement kicks, unbalanced line, the Notre Dame box, varsity letters, Statue of Liberty play, uniform numbers, the forward pass, the T Formation, the man in motion, the sleeper play, the linebacker position, the quarterback keeper, the delayed buck, numerical designations of plays, hip pads, padded goal posts, and the end-around. Suffice to say, he knew a little bit about football, Stagg was 1-4-2 in his first season, then had 17 consecutive winning seasons.

U of Chicago's leadership, specifically school President Robert Hutchins decided to eliminate football from the university.  It was a part of his plan to eliminate things from the school that would be a "distraction" to the student body and the professors. He hated the idea of an athlete being seen as a role model of any kind and he hated the popularity that footballers had gained around campus.  First, he eliminated the PE major.  Then, he forced Stagg to retire and prevented new coach Clark Shaughnessy from recruiting players. The cowardly Hutchins abolished football during Christmas break in 1939. He also eliminated fraternities and religious organizations.

The president of Loyola, a Jesuit named Robert Kelley, felt that the team was too popular and led to the general public attending games and showing interest, and that the celebrity of the athletes and focus on entertainment detracted from the amateur nature of the sport. So much like William Gianera at Santa Clara or William Dunne at USF, they unilaterally killed the sport.

BTW, DeGroot and Shaw were both extraordinary coaches that had superb records and would go on to coach in the NFL. Shaw was the only coach to beat Vince Lombardi in the postseason and beat LSU in two consecutive Sugar Bowls. DeGroot was 60-19-8 at SJSU, and his last three seasons were 11-2-1, 11-0-1 and 13-0, the last season SJSU had 8 shutouts and outscored opponents 324-29. Either Shaw or DeGroot would have been great coaches at Stanford. Minor edit: while DeGroot was a Stanford alum and an All American Center, Buck Shaw went to Creighton for a year and graduated from Notre Dame.