Pigskin Dispatch podcaster Darin Hayes and I discussed a recent TidBit about an Iowa-Wisconsin football game played in a blizzard, resulting in 33 fumbles.
That is a great story about the coat. I'll look into the other games since I wrote about both and the rule change in How Football Became Football. The issue will come up the next two weeks in the IFA Rule review which focuses on the kickout.
When I learned about this game in the 1980s, I asked my Grandma if she and Grandpa were at the game. "Oh yes. The game should never have been played, but Iowa thought they could win the Big Ten." She didn't remember anything about the game, but what she did remember was priceless. She had borrowed her sister's fur coat, and when she got home, her sister was horrified at the sight of her coat. "But Mama hung it up in the basement, and when it had dried it was just fine."
Of course, other games were affected by this storm. Drake inaugurated their new stadium by upsetting Nebraska, recovering 18 fumbles out of the 25 total in the game. And further east, Illinois got torrential rains. That was the weekend Northwestern beat Michigan 3-2 at Soldier Field in the mud. That game, coupled with the following week's 7-6 game between Iowa State and Drake, prompted the rule change requiring kicks after safeties.
That is a great story about the coat. I'll look into the other games since I wrote about both and the rule change in How Football Became Football. The issue will come up the next two weeks in the IFA Rule review which focuses on the kickout.
When I learned about this game in the 1980s, I asked my Grandma if she and Grandpa were at the game. "Oh yes. The game should never have been played, but Iowa thought they could win the Big Ten." She didn't remember anything about the game, but what she did remember was priceless. She had borrowed her sister's fur coat, and when she got home, her sister was horrified at the sight of her coat. "But Mama hung it up in the basement, and when it had dried it was just fine."
Of course, other games were affected by this storm. Drake inaugurated their new stadium by upsetting Nebraska, recovering 18 fumbles out of the 25 total in the game. And further east, Illinois got torrential rains. That was the weekend Northwestern beat Michigan 3-2 at Soldier Field in the mud. That game, coupled with the following week's 7-6 game between Iowa State and Drake, prompted the rule change requiring kicks after safeties.