History Lesson: 1921-1922 Iowa Hawkeyes

In the 60th installment of Iowa’s biggest in-state rivalry, don’t adjust your TV (or your eyes if you’re at the game). The Iowa Hawkeyes will be featuring something they’ve only done two other times in their football history, and never in the rivalry series.

Iowa will hope to play like their 1921 squad in the throwbacks they will wear on Saturday against Iowa State. Mandatory Credit: Mike DiNovo-US PRESSWIRE

The Hawkeyes will be wearing throwback uniforms as they open up play in Kinnick Stadium. They’ll be on showcase to commemorate the 1921 and 1922 Hawkeye teams that that both went 7-0 on the season and perfect 5-0 conference seasons in the Big Ten.

These teams were coached by Howard Jones, known as an intimdating coach that “didn’t tolerate discussion”.

He had the success to back it up. After going 42-17-1 in his eight seasons as Iowa’s head coach, he had a one-year stint at Duke before finishing his career with a dominating 16-year performance at USC. With the Trojans, he went 121-36-13, also winning all five Rose Bowls his teams were represented in.

Despite the intimidation factor, the coach was known to be energetic. He ran the ship, and the people who didn’t like Jones’ style either learned to like it or probably wasn’t around for very long. This also was the same for the assistant coaches, who ended up doing the recruiting work because Jones wasn’t a fan of it.

These two seasons were the at the peak of Howard’s time, and there were some dominating victories. The Hawkeyes shut out five teams, had a 10-7 victory over Notre Dame, and after finishing the 1921 season outscoring opponents 96-7, they were later named one of five teams to share a national championship.

If this kind of team shows up with the same defensive discipline as it did back in the 1920s, the Cyclones will have a tough day ahead of them on Saturday. However, those Hawkeye squads probably wouldn’t have squeezed out just a one-point victory over Northern Illinois either.

Brian Spaen is the lead editor for Clones Confidential, follow the site on Twitter and Facebook. Read his other work on the Oregon Ducks blog, Autzen Zoo, and Lacrosse the Web.