Yost and Rockne Argue
October 12, 2021
While watching the festivities we had a spirited debate as to where the day ranked among great days of college football. My good friend Bob Zuppke made a strong case for November 18, 1922 being up there as well. On that day you had close wins among top teams, like the Iowa Huckeyes over their Columbus-based namesakes, Princeton over Yale, and Brown over Harvard - with the latter two games featuring 3-0 finals. Princeton won on a field goal while Brown got their 3 points thanks to a safety and an extra point. That day also featured some high scoring affairs among top programs, like Auburn defeating Centre College 6-0 and Drake clinching a national title with a 21-0 win over powerhouse Grinnell. I can still remember being an SID in training at Pitt that day, closely following the teletype machine at the Pitt athletic office.
Bob was pretty persuasive in discussing 1922 but some of his coaching contemporaries disagreed. In particular Fielding H Yost and Newt Rockne. That led to a debate between those two coaching legends about their respective programs, which culminated with Coach Yost calling Coach Rockne's 1922 team "Satanic papists" and Coach Newt saying he was a Lutheran back then. Coach Yost then said "Lutheran? Martin Luther? Someone ought to nail your feces to the door" and threw a chair. Fortunately our good friend Bronko Nagurski once again served as a bouncer and settled things down by pinning Coach Yost until he calmed down.