Knute Rockne and Howard Jones
If you could invent a time machine, which coach would you bring back to coach your team: Howard Jones or Knute Rockne?
Howard Jones was born in Excello, Ohio on August 23, 1885. He played football at Yale from 1905 to 1907. His Yale teams went 28-0-1 and won three national titles. His first college head football coaching job was with Syracuse in 1908, and he would end up coaching for 28 seasons and five different schools. He passed away at the age of 55 in 1941.
He coached a total of 279 games with 194 wins, 64 losses, and 21 ties for a 69.5% winning percentage. He would coach for 28 seasons at six different schools: Syracuse; Yale; Ohio State; Iowa; Duke; and USC. He coached: Syracuse; Yale; Ohio State; and Duke; each for one year. At Iowa he stayed for eight seasons, won two Big Ten championships, and was awarded a national championship by Parke H. Davis for the 1921 season.
He is best known for being the head coach of the USC Trojans for 16 seasons from 1925 to 1940. There he won seven Pacific Coast Conference titles and six national championships. Over his career he played on three national championship teams and coached eight more for a total of 11. (Since there was no good way to determine national championships back then, the number of championships may vary; for instance, only five of the eight championships are claimed by the schools he coached.)
Knute Rockne was born in Voss, Norway on March 4, 1988. He played college football for Notre Dame from 1910 to 1913; he played professionally for four seasons. From 1914 to 1917 he was an assistant head coach for Notre Dame and became head coach in 1918, coaching for 13 seasons. He died tragically in a plane crash on July 27, 1941 at the age of 45.
At Notre Dame he won six National Championships, three of which are claimed by the school. (Since there was no good way to determine national championships back then, the number of championships may vary depending on which polls or selector services one recognizes.) His overall record at Notre Dame was 105 wins, 12 losses, and 5 ties for a winning percentage of 86.1%.
Coach Rockne was a highly innovative coach and is credited with popularizing the forward pass. He brought Notre Dame to a power house status and most surely would have won many more games and championships if he hadn’t died so young.
Coach Jones and Coach Rockne were both inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951; they were part of the inaugural class. So there you have it: a brief synopsis of the careers of the two legendary coaches. So when you travel back in time, who would you bring back to coach your college team: Howard Jones or Knute Rockne?