A Golden Lookback at Gophers Coach Murray Warmath (Part One)

His name was Murray Warmath. He was a football coach.

Warmath was born and raised in Tennessee, but once he moved north in the mid-1950s to become the head football coach at the University of Minnesota, the Gopher State became the home he would never leave.

Warmath led the Gophers for 18 seasons, from 1954 through 1971. There were some great seasons for the Gophers during that time, but there were also seasons that didn’t go so well for them. Still, Warmath was the last head football coach to lead the Gophers to a national championship as well as a pair of Big Ten conference championships.

In Part One of this two-part podcast about the Murray Warmath era at Minnesota, host Bob Edholm gets together with his two brothers, Dave and Tom Edholm, to talk about the 1954 through 1962 seasons. They’ll provide you with the specifics of each season, including such things as:

· The Gophers’ overall record

· How the Gophers fared in their traditional “trophy games” each season against Michigan (the Little Brown Jug), Iowa (Floyd of Rosedale), and Wisconsin (Paul Bunyan’s Axe)

· Those Gophers players who won individual honors, such as All-Big Ten, All-American, and the Team MVP Award