In the Iowa-UW Series, Gary Snook Remains an Unforgettable Name

The Hawkeyes quarterback was ahead of his time in 1964.

Iowa's Kinnick Stadium begins to fill up on game day. / Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- While the Washington-Iowa football series isn't real long in substance, with just a half-dozen games held over 86 years, this intersectional match-up has served as a ready platform for some memorable characters.

In 1937, Nile Kinnick was a sophomore quarterback who brought the Hawkeyes to Husky Stadium and lost 14-0. Two years later, he won the fifth Heisman Trophy awarded. In 1943, he tragically died in when his World War II fighter plane crashed into the sea. For all of his service, Kinnick's name adorns the Iowa football stadium.

Who in the Heartland could forget what freshman running back Jacque Robinson did to Iowa in the 1982 Rose Bowl, coming off the bench to rush 20 times for 142 yards and 2 touchdowns in just two quarters of play in the UW's 28-0 victory, earning himself MVP honors?

In the 1991 Rose Bowl, sophomore quarterback Mark Brunell had the finest performance of his Husky career by throwing 22- and 34-yard TD passes to Mario Bailey and running 5 and 20 yards for scores in the UW's 46-34 victory over Iowa.

Just four years later, a linebacker named Bill Ennis-Inge had a big day for Iowa in a 38-18 Sun Bowl dismantling of the Huskies, collecting a sack and sharing in a defensive effort that held an offensive-minded UW team to just 96 yards rushing, Twenty-seven years later, he would show up in Montlake known as William Inge and serve as the UW co-defensive coordinator during the Kalen DeBoer reign that lasted two seasons.

How about one more?

We would be remiss if we didn't mention Gary Snook.

WASHINGTON-IOWA SER(ES (3-3)
1937 -- at UW 14, Iowa 0	Huskies won first Big Ten game in 2nd try
1963 -- Iowa 17, at UW 7	Huskies fumbled 6 times, lost 4
1964 -- at Iowa 28, UW 18	Owens team led 18-14 through 3 quarters
1982 -- UW 28, Iowa 0 (Rose Bowl)	Robinson ran for 142 yards, 2 TDs
1991 -- UW 46, Iowa 34 (Rose Bowl)	Brunell passed for 2 TDs, ran for 2 more
1995 -- Iowa 38, UW 18 (Sun Bowl)	Hawkeyes built 24-0 lead with 5 FGs, safety

Exactly 60 years ago, this Iowa quarterback with the memorable name and someone ahead of his time left the Huskies shook and cooked, if not snookered.

In the only previous meeting between these teams in Iowa City, Snook completed19 of 32 passes for 215 yards and 2 TDs, and he ran for another score in a 28-18 Hawkeyes victory over a Jim Owens-coached and 10th-ranked UW outfit.

Similar to this weekend's game, the Huskies and Hawkeyes kicked off back then at 11:30 a.m. CT, with NBC televising the game and temperatures in the 70s.

What made Snook's performance all that more remarkable was it came in the first season for two-platoon football to take over the college game, which would open up things but take some time. The UW, coming off a Rose Bowl appearance, still was the typical three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust team back then and showed it by handing the ball 20 times to fullback Junior Coffey for 131 rushing yards.

Snook came out throwing.

He guided his team to a 14-0 first-quarter lead, watched the Huskies score 18 unanswered points in the second quarter to move ahead and then closed strong by throwing and running for touchdowns in the fourth quarter to secure the upset.

Snook would go on to be named the first-team All-Big Ten quarterback that season and considered as the best pure passer in Iowa football history.

No stadiums have been named for Gary Snook, yet similar to Kinnick, he died as a relatively young man. Twelve months before the Hawkeyes met the Huskies in the 1991 Rose Bowl, the former Iowa quarterback was 46 and living nearby in Pomona, California, when he died from throat cancer at home.

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