Ryan Dunleavy

@rydunleavy

Rutgers and Nebraska met for the first time in 1920 at the Polo Grounds in New York

Nebraska earned about $6,500 for playing Rutgers at the Polo Grounds in 1920

Tulane earned $800,000 for playing Rutgers at High Point Solutions Stadium in 2014

Nebraska became the first Midwestern school to play on both coasts in 1920

The last time that Rutgers faced Nebraska in college football there was no ESPN2 and no WCTC radio, but there was a budding Midwestern fan base and a Lincoln Star sportswriter stationed at 155th Street and Eighth Avenue in upper Manhattan, better known as the Polo Grounds.

"He sent back Western Union dispatches to the Star building in Lincoln," said Mike Babcock of Hail Varsity magazine, who has covered Nebraska football for the last 37 seasons and written about a dozen books on the Cornhuskers, "and they had outside the Star building someone with a megaphone that basically did play-by-play with his accounts."

The first meeting between the schools as Big Ten rivals at noon Saturday is a rematch 94 years in the making and a chance for Rutgers to even the score after a 28-0 loss on Nov. 2, 1920 — the same day that Warren Harding won the presidential election by the largest popular-vote percentage margin in history.

"It was a big deal because it was the first time Nebraska came east," said Thomas Frusciano, a Rutgers University archivist who wrote the definitive book on Rutgers football history in 2008. "They used to have these annual games at the Polo Grounds on Election Day and it was a big deal to play on Election Day. At that time, 20,000 people on a Tuesday afternoon, was probably a good crowd."

RELATED: Edelson: Rutgers football must avoid downward spiral

Rutgers fans in the crowd, accustomed to the dominance of the Paul Robeson era from 1915-18, didn't have to wait long to be disappointed as the scarlet Chanticleers came out in black uniforms because they "wished to show their sportsmanship" to Nebraska by allowing the visitors to wear red, according to The Daily Targum student newspaper.

To further alleviate confusion, Rutgers wore odd numbers and Nebraska wore even numbers.

Disappointment only worsened when the teams stopped trading punts and Nebraska scored two second-quarter touchdowns, prompting what The New York Times labeled a "typical Sanfordian riot act" at halftime.

"The cord-fed babies from Nebraska were a formidable aggregation," wrote the Targum, adding that "scales were not necessary to show that the invaders of the East out-weighted the lads from 'banks of the old Raritan' who put up a stubborn resistance, but were overpowered by beef and brawn."

RELATED: Julie Hermann, Rutgers AD, knows magnitude of Nebraska football

RELATED: Rutgers football not left with what-ifs as it tries to avoid snowball

While the definition of "beef and brawn" has changed — Nebraska started seven players weighing 190 pounds or more and one of the tallest players in football history at 6-foot-3 and was described by the Times as "an avalanche of football warriors" and "a great, husky, fearless mass of gridiron terrors" — the same questions about a size disadvantage surround all of Rutgers' games in its first Big Ten season.

Still, Rutgers likely wouldn't have been a 17.5-point underdog — as it is Saturday — in 1920 considering that Nebraska's varsity scrimmaged its freshmen team two days before boarding trains to New York.

"The freshmen team scored four touchdowns and the varsity team scored one," Babcock said. "You are figuring if you are getting on a train east to go play Rutgers and Penn State and you just got beat in a scrimmage by your freshmen team that probably doesn't bode well for spending that kind of money."

And yet Nebraska, which reportedly offered $5,000 to Rutgers to make a trip to Lincoln, ended up turning a profit on the trip. After turning down a $2,500 guarantee from Rutgers — which offers guarantees of $800,000 in 2014 — Nebraska earned about $6,500 from its portion of the shared gate at the Polo Grounds.

"(Nebraska coach) Henry Schulte took 25 players," Babcock said. "He wanted to take more players to reward them with a trip. The athletic director said no (because) it's going to be expensive enough as it is."

RELATED: Nebraska WR tandem doesn't mess with Rutgers preferred CB system

RELATED: Ameer Abdullah, Tommy Armstrong Jr. imposters at Rutgers practice

But the real blow to Schulte came when the win against Rutgers — deemed lopsided enough by The Times to suggest Rutgers "dispense with intersectional football" — was considered unimpressive enough by alums that it played a role a role in his firing, said the same newspaper just months later.

"Local fans are looking forward to the game this afternoon with a great zest of anticipation," the Times reported the day of the 1920 game.

As the two Big Ten sellout crowds at High Point Solutions Stadium earlier this season show, let the same be said today.

Staff writer Ryan Dunleavy: rdunleav@gannett.com