Howard Jones ( American football coach ) Howard Harding Jones ( August 23 , 1885 – July 27 , 1941 ) was an American football player and coach . He served as the head coach at Syracuse University ( 1908 ) , Yale University ( 1909 , 1913 ) , Ohio State University ( 1910 ) , the University of Iowa ( 1916 – 1923 ) , Duke University ( 1924 ) and the University of Southern California ( 1925 – 1940 ) , compiling a career record of 194 – 64 – 21 . His 1909 Yale team and four of his USC teams ( 1928 , 1931 – 1932 , 1939 ) won national championships . Jones coached USC in five Rose Bowls , winning all of them . Before coaching , Jones played football at Yale ( 1905 – 1907 ) , where he played on three national title - winning teams . He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951 . Early life and playing career . Jones was born in Excello , Ohio , now a part of Middletown . He played football for three seasons at Yale University , from 1905 to 1907 . During his three years , the Yale Bulldogs never lost a game , going 28 – 0 – 2 . Yale claims national championships for all three seasons . Coaching career . Syracuse , Yale and Ohio State . After graduating in 1908 , Jones became the head coach at Syracuse University , leading the Orangemen to a 6 – 3 – 1 record before returning to Yale as the head coach . He led Yale to a 10 – 0 record in 1909 , a season in which Yale claims another national championship . Yale ' s 15 – 0 victory over Syracuse in 1909 was significant in that it was the first time that two brothers had ever faced each other as opposing head coaches . Syracuse was then coached by Howard Jones ' s brother , Tad Jones . After the 1909 season , Howard Jones served a one - year stint as head football coach at Ohio State University in 1910 , leading the Buckeyes to a 6 – 1 – 3 record . Jones spent four of his next five years in private business , returning only to coach Yale to a 5 – 2 – 3 record in 1913 . A lack of team talent drove him toward greener pastures , and he would eventually enjoy great success at the University of Iowa and the University of Southern California . Iowa . Reed Lane , a businessman on the Iowa Athletic Board , was a classmate of Jones ' s when they both attended a Yale preparatory school . When Jesse Hawley left after the 1915 season , Iowa offered Jones a contract to become Iowa ' s 11th head football coach on the recommendation of Lane . Jones accepted a five year contract at $ 4 , 500 annually , the longest commitment and most money ever offered to a coach at Iowa . Jones ' s first two years were highlighted by a 67 – 0 loss to Minnesota in 1916 and a 47 – 0 loss to Nebraska in 1917 . Jones vowed he would never lose by such scores again , and he did not ; they remained the two worst losses of his career . In 1918 , Iowa defeated Minnesota for the first time in school history . It would be the first of five straight wins over Minnesota for Jones , and Nebraska never again scored a point on a Jones - coached team . The loss of Fred Becker hurt Iowa during that time . Becker was Iowa ' s first first team All - American as a sophomore in 1916 . He could have been a potential star for Jones , but he played just one season before enlisting for the service with the outbreak of World War I . Becker was killed in combat just ten months after being named an All - American . World War I altered the college football landscape . Eligibility rules were relaxed in the Big Ten Conference in 1918 . Iowa ' s athletic director also left to serve in the war , so Jones was appointed to that position as well . Iowa ' s game with Coe College in 1918 was played with no fans in the stands , as public officials feared a flu epidemic . Iowa reportedly won , 27 – 0 . In 1918 and 1919 , Iowa fell just short of the Big Ten title , with losses to Illinois costing the Hawkeyes the crown in both seasons . Jones also coached the Iowa baseball team in 1919 . In 1920 , Iowa had the top two scorers in the Big Ten and finished with a 5 – 2 record . Still , Iowa had not won a conference title in 21 years . All that changed in 1921 , when Iowa finished with a perfect 7 – 0 record and won the Big Ten title outright . The most notable win of the season was a 10 – 7 triumph over Notre Dame . It was Jones ' s first meeting with Notre Dame coach Knute Rockne . The win snapped a 20 - game winning streak for Rockne and Notre Dame , which would be the longest winning streak of Rockne ' s career . One of the criticisms fans had of the previous Iowa coach , Hawley , was that he could not convince talented Iowa players to play at Iowa . Jones succeeded in that respect ; the 1921 Hawkeyes started 11 native Iowans . Despite the graduations of many key players , Iowa again posted a perfect 7 – 0 final record in 1922 . Iowa again went 5 – 0 in the Big Ten , capturing its second straight Big Ten crown . It is the only time in Iowa history that the Hawkeyes have won consecutive conference titles . The most notable win of the 1922 season was a victory over Yale , then coached by Howard ' s brother , Tad . It was the first time a " western " team had ever defeated Yale in New Haven . Iowa ’ s winning streak from 1920 – 1923 under Jones lasted 20 games and almost three full years . Howard Jones ' s wife was not fond of Iowa City , and he demanded a new contract , which would allow him to coach and live in Iowa City only during football season . A conflict between Jones and the chairman of the Athletics Board at Iowa contributed to the tension , and Jones eventually resigned as head coach and athletic director at Iowa . Duke and USC . Jones coached in 1924 at Trinity College , now known as Duke University , before leaving for USC in 1925 . In 16 seasons at USC , Jones coached seven Pacific Coast Conference championship teams and four more national champions , and won each of the five Rose Bowls in which his Trojans played . In the 1920s , USC won two Rose Bowls , in 1923 and 1930 . Heading into the 1930 Rose Bowl , USC had defeated its crosstown rival UCLA 76 – 0 in their first meeting . Moments before a USC - Stanford game , Jones visited the Stanford locker room and discovered Stanford All - American halfback Bobby Grayson was nursing an injured knee . Jones returned to the USC quarters and instructed his players to avoid hitting Grayson in the crippled leg . They never did . In 1939 and 1940 , Jones ' s teams again won the Rose Bowl . In those two Rose Bowl games , USC faced teams that were unbeaten , untied and unscored - upon . First it was Duke , which led after an early fourth quarter 23 - yard field goal by Tony Ruffa , but backup USC quarterback Doyle Nave completed four straight passes to " Antelope " Al Krueger who outmaneuvered Eric " The Red " Tipton , scoring the winning touchdown with one minute remaining . Krueger ' s touchdown marked the first points scored against Duke during the season . In the 1940 Rose Bowl , the Trojans defeated the Tennessee Volunteers 14 – 0 , ending a 23 - game Tennessee winning streak and scoring the first points scored against the Volunteers all season . Joe Shell , later an oil and natural gas producer , state legislator and Republican candidate for Governor of California in 1962 , was the halfback on those teams . USC historian Al Wesson remarked , " Howard lived and breathed football . If it were not for football , he would have starved to death – couldn ' t possibly have made a living in business . " One of the players Jones coached while at USC was legendary film star John Wayne . Wesson also recalled , " His assistants tried to get him to organize the practices and let them do most of the heavy work . He ' d promise to do it , but after 15 minutes on the field , he ' d be down on the ground showing them personally how to block , following every play on the dead run , and acting as though he were still playing end at Yale . He just couldn ' t relax and let others do the heavy work . " Jones lived in Toluca Lake , California . On the hot morning of July 27 , 1941 , while home alone and washing and waxing his car , Jones fell ill and called his doctor , who lived nearby . By the time he arrived , Jones was dead ; he had suffered a heart attack . The sudden , unexpected death was a shock to family , friends and fans : Several thousand people attended his funeral at First Methodist Church in Hollywood . He was buried in Woodside Cemetery & Arboretum at Middletown , Ohio . Coaching style and personality . Jones was known for being completely absorbed in the sport and aloof outside of it . While he and Notre Dame ' s Knute Rockne were the two most famous coaches in America in the 1930s , beyond football their personalities were completely different : Rockne was a natural showman , Jones was a terrible public speaker and humorless . His appearance , described as " stone - faced " and " severe - looking " kept him intimidating . Though quiet off the field , when coaching , Jones was intimidating and energetic . Although his players and assistant coaches had a hard time relating to him , all had absolute confidence in his abilities . While admired for his integrity and scruples , Jones ' s formidable personality led him to be an authoritarian coach at times , and he did not tolerate discussion . Jones did not like spending time on recruiting , relying mostly on his assistants , and recruited only very few players . His assistants Bob McNeish , Hobbs Adams and Jeff Cravath are credited with bring in the players who enabled USC to win two more Rose Bowls after lean years in the mid - 1930s . Honors . All told , Jones ' s career record was 194 – 64 – 21 , a . 733 winning percentage , in over 28 seasons at Syracuse , Yale , Ohio State , Iowa , Duke and Southern California . He was a member of the College Football Hall of Fame ' s inaugural class of inductees in 1951 .