Thread by @iowahawkblog

Bring home the bacon. boys #FightForIowa #DefendFloyd

The surprising history of Floyd of Rosedale, college football's best traveling trophy. Created to diffuse tensions over Minnesota's targeting of black Hawkeye halfback Ozzie Simmons in the 1934 game
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa%E2%8…

Even more backstory: Iowans' anger over the 1934 treatment of Simmons was amplified because of Jack Trice, a black Iowa State player who died after being stomped in the 1923 ISU-Minnesota game. ISU's stadium is named for him.
sbnation.com/longform/2014/…

The most consequential Floyd game was 1960, #1 ranked Iowa at #3 Minnesota. Minnesota won 27-10, and wound up AP National Champs; Iowa finished AP #3.
footballstudyhall.com/2017/4/17/1532…

Oddly Gophers were named national champs even tho they lost to Washington in the Rose Bowl. Final AP poll took place before bowl games.
Iowa, despite being #3, going 8-1, and 6-1 against ranked teams in a particularly murderous schedule, didn't even go to a bowl game.

Until the early '70s the Big 10 had an exclusive arrangement with the Rose Bowl; Big 10 champ went to the Rose Bowl, no other conference team was allowed to go to any bowl, even if you were rank #3.

Incidentally the #2 team in the AP poll in 1960 was Ole Miss, amid a time when the Mississippi legislature was threatening to withhold funding from any state university that as much as *played* any integrated team.

By contrast, in 1960 Iowa FB had been fielding integrated teams for 65 years. The stars of 1960 Hawkeye FB included black players Joe Williams, Jim Winston, Larry Ferguson, and Wilburn Hollis, the first black All-American dropback QB.

In any case, most retrospective computer polls ID Iowa as the best CFB team of 1960. The single fluke loss to the Gophers in Minneapolis was the only thing separating them from an AP championship, and it must be avenged today, and every year until the end of time.

That said, today's #GloomyDave prediction:

Subterranean Rodents 11
Idiots Out Wandering Around 2