It was a game of the century by our standards, a matchup for the ages when 60 years ago today No. 1 ranked Iowa came to Minneapolis to play No. 3 Minnesota at Memorial Stadium. A potential national championship, Rose Bowl invitation and Big Ten title meant the rewards couldn’t be better for the winner on November 5, 1960.
The energy at the stadium was beyond electric. The rivalry to gain possession of Floyd of Rosedale always made Minnesota-Iowa an emotional day for the two teams and states, but never before had there been a Golden Gophers-Hawkeyes matchup like this. There were an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Iowa fans in the stadium and they were loud and sometimes obnoxious. The Gophers fans, though, answered back in the noisy “Brickhouse” that housed a season record crowd of 65,610, with the turnstile count way over capacity and fans sitting in the aisles.
The buildup to the game and demand for tickets was so intense newspaper columnist Sid Hartman pleaded not to bother him anymore for tickets. Scalping prices were reportedly as high as $100—big money in those days. This wasn’t just a local or Big Ten phenomenon, Minnesota-Iowa was a national story that included major coverage by Sports Illustrated.
After a 2-7 record in 1959, Minnesota was 6-0 and the surprise of college football in the fall of 1960. Insiders had seen the success coming. Coach Murray Warmath had expanded his recruiting to far away places like Pennsylvania and North Carolina. He opened a pipeline for Black players that included the likes of quarterback Sandy Stephens and tackle Bobby Bell.
Stephens was a junior, Bell a sophomore in 1960. To this day, they remain two of the most gifted football players in Gopher history. They were impact players on a roster anchored by a heavy dose of players from Minnesota, with none more important than Minneapolis native and nose guard Tom Brown who won the 1960 Outland Trophy recognizing the nation’s best lineman. He finished second in Heisman Trophy voting—a remarkable achievement for a lineman.
Dana Marshall, from Braham, Minnesota, became a Gopher football student manager starting with the 1957 season. That team was a preseason favorite to win the Big Ten and go to the Rose Bowl. Minnesota began 3-0 but collapsed, finishing the season 4-5 overall, 3-5 in Big Ten games. Marshall recalled in a phone interview the Gophers went on to lose 20 of their next 24 games after that 3-0 start.
In 1960 Marshall was the senior student manager. The season would be the last for redemption for seniors like Brown and captain Greg Larson, another Minnesota native and one of the Big Ten’s best centers. Marshall remembered the morning of the Iowa game there was a players-only meeting at the St. Paul Hotel. Larson spoke and so did Stephens whose words are remembered to this day by Marshall, now retired from a Minneapolis business career and living in Las Vegas.
“Everything we’ve hoped for, or dreamed of, is here before us today,” Stephens told his teammates.
Make no mistake Stephens had big days in mind when he came to Minnesota. He was a prize recruiting catch for Warmath. Woody Hayes wanted him at Ohio State. Ara Parseghian, coaching at Northwestern, badly wanted Stephens who was a high school superstar in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Gopher historians might tell you that never in the history of Minnesota football has the school landed a more sought after recruit than Stephens, who as a dual-threat star made All-American in 1961 and was named by the Chicago Tribune as the Big Ten’s MVP.
But if November 5, 1960 belonged to any single player, it was Brown. The undefeated Hawkeyes had an explosive offense led by a group of running backs who probably were all faster than any of the Gophers. This game, however, was defined by strength, cunning and sheer will as Brown and Company shut down the Hawkeyes. “Players were just in awe watching Brown because he was so strong,” Marshall said.
Brown made his presence known early in the game, rattling Iowa center Bill Van Buren whose bad snap on a first quarter punt led to a short drive for a Minnesota touchdown. Marshall said word was a frustrated Van Buren uttered the following on that Saturday afternoon years ago: “I’ve got a second half to play against that son of a bitch.”
Minnesota had a 7-3 halftime lead and Iowa scored a touchdown in the third quarter to go ahead 10-7 . But the Gophers led 13-7 entering the fourth quarter and added two more scores to make the final 27-10 for the nation’s new No. 1 team. Marshall said the fourth quarter domination was typical of Minnesota’s performance late in games all season.
Warmath was a hero and was hoisted on to the players’ shoulders in the delirious moments after the game. In the coach’s biography, The Autumn Warrior, author Mike Wilkinson reported “the crowd went crazy” and fans hoisted up reserve quarterback Joe Salem who had come off the bench to provide key plays in relief of Stephens.
“This is the greatest moment of my life. Nothing comes close,” Larson said in a quote from the Warmath book. A modest Brown said, “I guess I got in my licks.”
Minnesota stumbled at home the next Saturday, when Purdue got out to an early lead and the Boilermakers went on to a 23-14 victory that quickly took the Gophers out of the No. 1 spot in the nation. The Gophers then went to Madison for the season finale and got an impressive 26-7 victory over Wisconsin on November 19.
Marshall recalled that the win over the Badgers had the Gophers wondering if they still could become national champions. No. 1 Missouri was upset by Kansas the same day Minnesota was winning in Madison. In late November when the final polls came out Minnesota was back on top at No. 1 in the country.
Back then the Associated Press and United Press International named their national champions before bowl games and didn’t change rankings afterwards. Minnesota’s record was 8-1 overall and 6-1 in the Big Ten. Iowa, also with an 8-1 record, finished No. 2 in the UPI poll and No. 3 in the AP.
The Gophers had a better conference record than Iowa’s 5-1 but the two teams were declared co-Big Ten champs. One of Minnesota’s league wins was against an Indiana program on NCAA probation, so the victory wasn’t credited to the Gophers in determining the Big Ten champion. “We precariously got punished for Indiana’s problems,” Marshall said.
The Gophers had won their first league and national titles since 1941. They earned the school’s first ever Rose Bowl invitation. Although Minnesota lost to Washington in Pasadena, the 1960 season was the start of a glorious three-year run where the Gophers compiled a 22-6-1 record. Through it all, no game had higher stakes than November 5, 1960.
Great column Dave, well done!