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Former Tulane coach Bernie Bierman could be the greatest CFB coach no one knows about

Matt Zemek
·8 min read

When the turn of phrase “The greatest X no one knows about” is used, a lot of people might think that’s hyperbole and embellishment.

Come on: A lot of people know about X. To be sure, “no one” is a bit of embellishment. However, the larger point being made is that a really excellent professional or craftsman is known by a lot fewer people than he should be. A person who is elite in his profession and has achieved very richly on a larger, historical level is known by few members of younger generations of human beings.

Before we dip into sports, let’s take some non-sports examples of people who achieved on a remarkable scale in life but are not household names for younger generations of Americans:

Wright Patman.

Dorothy Day.

Marriner Eccles. (Yes, this is the guy whose name is on the Utah Utes’ football stadium, for reasons other than football.)

If you’re a younger person and don’t know who those people were, it’s not your fault at all. No one taught you about them. You had no control over that.

Yet, it is important that you know about those people. We should all try to keep the memory alive of important Americans and world citizens who did significant things in their lives.

You might wonder what Patman, Day, and Eccles have in common. Here’s one answer: They were all very prominent and active in the 1930s. Why mention the 1930s?

That’s when USC and Tulane met in the Rose Bowl, guided by two of the greatest and most successful coaches in college football history.

This leads us back to the “Greatest X no one knows about.”

USC fans know all about Howard Jones, the patriarch of the Trojan football program and the man who first made USC football a national household name. USC fans might not know about the Tulane coach who opposed Jones and the Trojans in the 1932 Rose Bowl.

Bernie Bierman, who coached against Jones 91 years ago in the first and most important USC-Tulane game ever played, really could be the “Greatest college football coach no one knows about.”

Let’s tell his story, so that younger college football fans will know about him and pass that story down to their children and grandchildren:

PILES OF NATIONAL TITLES

SHORT VIDEO

INNOVATION

7 BIG TEN TITLES

MORE HONORS

CONTEXTUAL COMPARISON

AUTHOR

ONLY THE GREATS DO THIS

DYNASTY

ON THE JOB

TRADITIONS

PLAYING DAYS

STRANGE BUT TRUE

ON THE FIELD

COACH OF THE DECADE

GOLDEN

THE NUMBERS

PHOTO

DRAMA

FUN FACT

REMEMBER: PETE CARROLL WAS A BUD GRANT DISCIPLE

OLDER PHOTO

TULANE MEMORIES

IN THE PAPERS

FINAL NOTE

When Bernie Bierman coached against USC’s Howard Jones in the 1932 Rose Bowl, both men had yet to win a national championship. Yet, in the course of time, both men won a combined eight national titles as a conservative estimate. If you count Jones’ 1909 Yale and 1921 Iowa teams as national champions, the two coaches combined for 10 national championships.

The 1932 USC-Tulane Rose Bowl — it could reasonably be argued — featured one of the two or three greatest coaching matchups in the history of college football if measured solely by the combined national championships eventually won by both men.

The others: Bear Bryant versus Woody Hayes in the 1978 Sugar Bowl won by Alabama over Ohio State. Bryant won six national titles, Hayes five.

Nick Saban versus Urban Meyer in the 2015 Sugar Bowl, the 2014 College Football Playoff semifinals: Saban has seven national titles, Meyer three.

Story originally appeared on Trojans Wire