USC Big Ten Tour: the towering achievement of Hayden Fry at Iowa
When we introduced our Big Ten Tour podcast series with Hawkeyes Wire, we started with the current Iowa football coach, Kirk Ferentz. As successful as Ferentz has been in more than 20 years in Iowa City, he couldn’t have prospered if his predecessor hadn’t laid a great foundation for him.
That predecessor is Hayden Fry, who coached the Hawkeyes for the 20 seasons preceding the start of Ferentz’s tenure in 1999.
Hawkeyes Wire Josh Helmer went in depth with us on Fry’s legacy in Iowa City. He forged so many significant accomplishments as Iowa’s coach, reviving a program which was stagnant and adrift for the two decades which came before his arrival in 1979.
If one was to identify the biggest achievement of Fry’s tenure at Iowa — and there are several large feats to choose from — the 1981 Big Ten championship season is hard to argue against.
Get this: When the 1981 Iowa team clinched a Rose Bowl berth — securing a spot in the 1982 Granddaddy versus Washington — the Hawkeyes became the first Big Ten program other than Michigan and Ohio State to make the Rose Bowl since the 1967 Indiana Hoosiers made the 1968 Rose Bowl (and lost to national champion USC).
Ohio State made the Rose Bowl as the Big Ten’s representative in Pasadena in the 1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, and 1979 seasons. Michigan made the Rose Bowl in the 1969, 1971, 1976, 1977, 1979, and 1980 seasons. No one else in the Big Ten interrupted the Buckeye-Wolverine axis of power until Hayden Fry and Iowa came along in the 1981 season.
That is a powerful and enduring achievement in Big Ten football history.
Here is the full Hayden Fry podcast episode with Josh Helmer of Hawkeyes Wire:
