Floyd of Rosedale

Floyd is back home in Iowa tonight. Floyd is, of course, the bronze pig statue that is the prize of the annual Minnesota vs. Iowa football game. In 1935, the Iowa fans were upset about the way that Minnesota had roughed up one of their players the year before. The game that year was in Iowa and there was a lot of what modern sports types would call "trash talk" leading up to the game. Even the governor of Iowa got into the act. To calm the fans, Minnesota's governor Floyd B. Olson proposed a friendly bet which the Iowa governor accepted. Minnesota won the game; there was no violence. Iowa presented Minnesota with a champion pig, which was then named after the Minnesota governor. The pig was a brother of the pig in the movie "State Fair." From then on, they played for a bronze statue of the pig rather than the real thing. Read more about Floyd of Rosedale here for the Minnesota perspective, here for the Iowa perspective. This is the fourth year in a row that Floyd has come home to Iowa.

Aren't college football rivalries great? Paul Bunyan's Axe, the Old Oaken Bucket, the Little Brown Jug, Floyd of Rosedale--of this list, only the Old Oaken Bucket doesn't involve Minnesota. They must have one of the largest number of prizes up for grabs each year. I wonder when (or if) they ever had the Axe, the Jug, and Floyd all in one year.