Brown: Reminded of Chosen Children with B1G Expansion

Iowa Football Split Pair of Games with USC, UCLA in 1974

IOWA CITY, Iowa - I enrolled at the University of Iowa in the fall of 1974, and

Hawkeye football was in the basement. That’s not a pessimistic take even though Iowa was coming off a perfect season. An 0-11 season.

Bob Commings had replaced Frank Lauterbur as head coach, and this is what was waiting for him in the first four games of the 1974 season, according to the Associated Press preseason poll: at No. 6 Michigan, No. 12 UCLA, No. 8 Penn State, at No. 5 Southern California.

Commings, an undersized offensive guard on Iowa’s 1956 Rose Bowl championship team, only lost three of those games. The underdog Hawkeyes beat UCLA in the home opener at Kinnick Stadium, 21-10.

“The Chosen Children,” Commings nicknamed his team after the losing streak had ended at a dozen straight. “Chosen Children” buttons were made. I still have one.

Those “Chosen Children” went to California with momentum. And when USC’s Ricky Bell fumbled the opening kickoff, which resulted in Nick Quartaro’s 26-yard field goal, Iowa had a 3-0 lead.

By the time it was over, the statistics told quite a story. Iowa finished with 363 yards of total offense, to 232 for the Trojans. That included a 249-118 edge in rushing yards. Iowa also had 21 first downs, to 15 for USC, and ran 91 plays from scrimmage to 44 for the Trojans.

The final score? USC 41, Iowa 3. So much for statistics.

“I thought our players deserved a better fate,” Commings said.

Three plays in particular told the story. After Quartaro’s field goal, he was told to kick the ball away from Heisman Trophy candidate Anthony Davis. Quartaro’s first attempt went out-of-bounds. Davis fielded the kickoff after the penalty, fumbled it and then picked it up and returned it 80 yards for a touchdown.

Iowa’s defense limited Davis to just 6 rushing yards in six carries that day. Davis finished the season with better than 1,400 yards rushing and was a Heisman Trophy runner-up to Ohio State’s Archie Griffin.

And then there was Charlie Phillips, who returned fumbles for touchdowns covering 83 and 98 yards. That set an NCAA record for fumble return yardage.

Iowa would win two of the next three games, but lost the final four to finish the season 3-8. Commings came close to having the program’s first winning season since 1961, but couldn’t get over the hump. His 1976 and 1977 teams went 5-6. The 1977 season included an NCAA-imposed forfeit of a 34-16 loss to UCLA.

Commings was fired after a 2-9 mark in 1978. Athletic Director Bump Elliott hired Hayden Fry, and the rest is history. Fry and Kirk Ferentz have been the only two head coaches the past 44 seasons.

The sport of college football is a much different animal than it was when Bob Commings was patrolling the sideline.

Who would have predicted, on the eve of the 1974 season, that UCLA, Penn State and USC would all be in the Big Ten down the road?

Who would have predicted that playoffs would be a part of the game, or the Big Ten would have a championship game? Predicted conference realignment that would make the landscape so different than it was when the Big Ten had 10 teams? Who would have foreseen NIL legislation, or wildly fluctuating transfer rules? Who would have predicted a season when Floyd of Rosedale was put in mothballs because Iowa and Minnesota didn’t play, which hasn’t happened since 1930? It might happen down the road, because protected rivalries could be a victim of power conferences that continue to grow.

“I probably wouldn’t be the only person to say I’m really concerned about the path that college football is on right now and eager to see where it heads and what direction we end up taking,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said at the recent Big Ten football media days in Indianapolis, Ind. “But it’s a great game. It was a big thing when I went to the University of Pittsburgh as a grad assistant. It was a big thing when I went to Iowa in 1981. If anything, it has just grown bigger certainly. It always has been, and it’s bigger now.”

The noise around the sport is definitely louder than it was when Ferentz moved to Iowa City.

“I think you have to think about our players, think about the voices that they hear, the things they have to deal with, the hands that are on them, the noise that they’re listening to, and most of all, I think, the pressure. That’s certainly a concern I have as I think of our football team. I’ve long felt that way.”

A lot of that noise comes from social media, where players are criticized by anonymous voices.

College football has always been about enthusiasm, and the rah-rah element to the game is still there. Five of Iowa’s seven home games this season at Kinnick Stadium (Iowa State, Nevada, Michigan, Northwestern, Wisconsin) are sold out, and the other two (Nebraska, South Dakota State), are getting close.

That enthusiasm now includes NIL collectives, like “The Swarm.” A new television deal is on the horizon. And who knows? Big Ten membership might double its name in size. What a long strange trip it’s been since Bob Commings and his “Chosen Children” took down Coach Dick Vermeil and UCLA.