@ChipHilton, tell us what it was like to be at this game.
Keeping in mind that I was 3...
Iowa's record was 4-1in the conference when Ohio State arrived at Iowa Stadium on November 17, 1956. The proud defending champions, possessors of 17 straight Big 10 victories, were favored to add an Iowa scalp to their impressive, record breaking string.
The manner in which the Iowa team rose to the occasion has become a story of the pride, the desire and unselfish sacrifice which Evashevski expected and received from his players. After a brusing, scoreless first half, Iowa got the ball on its own 37 to start the 3rd quarter. The Hawks went on the march, covered 63 yards in 10 plays, including a climactic 17-yard scoring pass form Kenny Ploen to Jim Gibbons. Bob Prescott missed his first extra point of the year, but Iowa had a 6-0 lead. That was the final score.
So ferocious was the Hawk defense that it permitted Ohio State no advance beyond the Iowa 32 yard line. It permitted only 2 pass completions for 18 yards and limited the Ohio State ground attack, which had rushed for a modern conference record of 465 yards the week before, to only 147. The Bucks were out-first-downed, outscored and stripped of their Big 10 title in the wake of the most important victory ever witnessed on the turf of Iowa Stadium.
The Hawkeyes had earned a Rose bowl trip. That night, at a victory celebration in the Memorial Union, Provost Harvey Davis advised 2000 cheering students that there would be two additional days of Christmas vacation. "An excellent victory deserves one day," he said in measured academic voice "and an extraordinary one deserves two."
Amid the echoes of of celebration came further accolades. Alex Karrasa became the second Hawkeye in two weeks to earn national "lineman of the week" honors. Kenny Ploen was named Midwest Back of the Week and Forest Evashevski received his first 1956 coaching honor: Midwest Coach of the Year by the Chicago Football Writers Association.
*The above came from the book "75 Years With The Fighting Hawkeyes" by Dick Lamb and Bert McGrane.