This weekend, Iowa will travel to Minnesota for one of the most storied rivalries in all of college football.

On the surface, the Floyd of Rosedale trophy, awarded annually to the winning team, appears straightforward enough. It’s a 98-pound bronze pig trophy that measures 15½ inches tall and 21 inches long. It’s ceremonially lifted into the autumnal air by the winning team at the end of the (usually) closely contested game between the Hawkeyes and Golden Gophers. It happens to be part of an iconic group of college football rivalry trophies, including the Golden Egg shared by Ole Miss and Mississippi State, the Old Oaken Bucket shared by Big Ten rivals Indiana and Purdue, and numerous others. 

Almost all rivalry trophies carry a story. That’s what makes them special. But this one carries a much deeper meaning, and even though it often gets lost in the shuffle of a football season, it should never be forgotten. 

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On October 27, 1934, Minnesota and Iowa squared off for the sixteenth time. 

The air was cool in Iowa City. Fans gathered to watch a consequential matchup with a conference title hanging in the balance for Minnesota. The game was lopsided, with the Golden Gophers winning 48-12. But what happened during the game would change the course of this rivalry forever. 

Iowa running back and kick returner Ozzie Simmons, a Black native Texan who was unable to play college ball in his home state, had found his footing in black and yellow just a few weeks earlier. Legend has it, he came to Iowa City in a boxcar to play for the Hawkeyes. In his first varsity game in 1934, he rushed for 166 yards, returned a kickoff for a touchdown, and chipped in another 124 yards in punt returns. 

“When he left the game in the fourth quarter, newspapers reported that Northwestern fans gave him a standing ovation,” said Iowa alumna Jaime Schultz, a professor of kinesiology at Penn State University, who wrote the book Moments of Impact: Injury, Racialized Memory, and Reconciliation in College Football. 

But against Minnesota, Simmons was subjected to racially charged violence throughout the game. He was beaten up so badly that he was knocked unconscious three times and left the game in the second quarter. It was alleged that a Minnesota player deliberately drove a knee into Simmons on a punt return. Minnesota’s coach at the time, Bernie Bierman, called the accusations of racially motivated play “dirt.” 

According to Schultz, Simmons’ injuries garnered media attention as one of the reasons for Minnesota’s lopsided victory, although few reporters outside of the Black press called out the nature of the nasty hits. 

In the lead-up to the 1935 rivalry game at Iowa Stadium, Iowa governor Clyde Herring publicly decried the cheap shots against Simmons the year prior. He was quoted as saying, “If the officials stand for any rough tactics like Minnesota used last year, I’m sure the crowd won’t.” 

Bierman took offense to the claims. Schultz said that Bierman threatened to never play Iowa again and opted to move his team’s pregame practice to Rock Island, Illinois, where they were guarded by Illinois police. 

The noise around the game reached a boiling point. In an effort to calm the waters, Minnesota governor Floyd B. Olson offered Herring a peace treaty of sorts. 

“If you seriously think Iowa has any chance to win, I will bet you a Minnesota prize hog against an Iowa prize hog that Minnesota wins today,” Olson said. “The loser must deliver the hog in person to the winner. Accept my bet thru a reporter. You are getting odds because Minnesota raises better hogs than Iowa. My best personal regards and condolences.” 

Herring accepted the challenge. The 1935 contest went off without incident. Newspapers barely made mention of what happened to Simmons the year prior. The Gophers won 13-6, and Iowa had to pay up with one prized pig. 

According to historians, Governor Herring obtained the prize-winning pig from a man named Allen Loomis, the owner of Rosedale Farms near Fort Dodge, Iowa. The pig was dubbed “Floyd” after Governor Olson. A few days after the game, Governor Herring collected the “Floyd of Rosedale” and personally walked him into Governor Olson’s carpeted office. 

As it turned out, the pig was never vaccinated and died of cholera just eight months after making headlines. 

The schools could no longer wager on a live pig, so Governor Olson commissioned Saint Paul sculptor Charles Brioscho to capture Floyd’s image, which resulted in the bronze pig trophy.

Simmons went on to play one more difficult season with the Hawkeyes. Contemporary observers speculated he endured racially biased mistreatment from Iowa coach Ossie Solem and his own teammates. Some went so far as to suggest teammates left opposing players unblocked, making Simmons susceptible to big hits. At one point, Simmons left the team, although he never made any public statements as to why. 

After college, Simmons was kept out of the NFL by the league’s color barrier, which was enacted only a few years earlier, after the retirement of Duke Slater, an All-American player at Iowa whose name was given to the field at Kinnick Stadium in 2021. The NFL reintegrated Black players in 1946.

Simmons played for the American Association Paterson Panthers in New Jersey during the 1937 and 1939 seasons before retiring from professional football.

Some college football rivalries are built on proximity. Others are built on hate or happenstance. But the Floyd of Rosedale? This one tells the story of rivalry and race. 

Enjoy the game on Saturday. Make note of how special rivalries like this one are in a sport that feels like it’s changing by the minute. And remember Ozzie Simmons, what he went through, and why stories like his still matter so much today.

College Football Week 8 might not have the biggest headliners of the season, but after another wild Saturday, there are plenty of opportunities for things to go sideways. Which teams can build on emotional wins, which ones are heading for a letdown, and which supposed contenders are running out of answers?

We make our picks for Ole Miss at Texas, Indiana at Michigan, LSU at Auburn, USC at Wisconsin and Houston at Utah. Can Texas fix its sputtering offense against a surging Ole Miss team? How does Michigan's quarterback change affect its chances against Indiana? And is Utah ready for its toughest test yet? We also discuss Julian Sayin's injury and what it could mean for Ohio State's Big Ten and College Football Playoff hopes, plus the coaching change at Maryland.

Then we go window by window with our Quadfather picks, including Tennessee-South Carolina, Texas A&M-Alabama, BYU-UCF, Texas Tech-Cincinnati and plenty of games beyond the marquee matchups. There's a particularly bold upset pick, a late-night showdown between North Dakota State and New Mexico, and an under-the-radar game whose abbreviated name practically writes its own jokes.

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