Yesterday was a beautiful fall day in Des Moines. As a I turned my car down Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, the sun was out, the wind was blowing through my hair and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were blasting on the radio.
I was listening to Can't Stop and realized, in thinking back to last Saturday, that a verse in the middle of the tune really hit home for me:
Wait a minute I'm passing out
Win or lose just like you
Far more shocking
Than anything I ever knew
How about you
My mind raced to Nico Ragani's touchdown, the fans storming the field and the fact that the Iowa Hawkeyes are 6-0 and ranked #2 in the country. It's been a shocking undefeated start for a team most thought would be good (maybe really good) but certainly not ranked in the top-two nor be a virtual lock to head to Indianapolis by mid-October.
Life in Iowa City is good.
Normally I hate bye weeks, but next Saturday's open date will likely be welcomed by almost everyone associated with Iowa football following what has been an emotionally-draining first half of the season. A whirlwind 2-0 start reached another gear following Iowa's 51-14 shellacking of Maryland in College Park. Last week's top-five showdown with the Nittany Lions was so intense and nerve-racking and sometimes demoralizing but ultimately enjoyable, that I think most of us could use a break.
I definitely could use a week off just to relax and get my head right again so I'm mentally passing out, win or lose... at least for a couple of days.
All this being said, at #2 in the AP Poll and now under the national microscope with anything and everything they want in front of them, Iowa can't stop for a moment to admire its perfect start for at least 24-ish more hours.
A challenge from Our Most Hated Rival, pesky Purdue, awaits this weekend and we all know, no matter what the rankings and records, how harrowing this matchup usually is for the Hawkeyes. Since 2017, the Boilermakers have gone only 22-27 overall, yet Iowa is somehow 1-3 against OMHR including a 24-15 loss in Iowa City four seasons ago against a team that finished just 6-6. In the same time span the Hawkeyes are 39-14 overall.
Instead of delving further into Iowa's struggles with Purdue #HOWISDAVIDBELLSTILLINSCHOOL, a far more interesting examination would be how the Hawkeyes have fared the week before a break in their schedule. Iowa is 8-4 in contests prior to a bye over the last ten seasons with wins in three of its last four such games.
The Hawkeyes have played the Boilermakers in two such instances over the last decade—both Iowa victories in West Lafayette.
In 2013, a 5-4 Hawkeyes team traveled to western Indiana in early November looking to bounce back from a demoralizing home loss to Wisconsin the week before. A 7-7 tie late in the first half turned into a 21-7 Iowa lead after a Mark Weisman touchdown late in the third quarter. The Hawkeyes added 17 more points in the fourth quarter—capping off a 31-0 scoring run on a C.J. Beathard five yard touchdown rush—in a 38-14 victory.
From the jump it was Jordan Canzeri's day as the then-sophomore running back rumbled for 165 yards and score on 20 carries. Canzeri's big day spearheaded an Iowa rushing attack that saw eight different ball carriers combine for 318 yards and three touchdowns.
The Hawkeyes returned to West Lafayette the following season looking to enter a late September bye at 4-1. Beathard's first career start was a mixed bag—the sophomore went just 17-37 through the air with a pick-six but still tossed for 245 yards and a touchdown—but Iowa outgained Purdue 420-156 in total yards and rallied for a 24-10 triumph.
Down 10-0 early in the second quarter, Weisman scored from two yards out to get the Hawkeyes on the board and a Marshall Koehn field goal tied the game at 10 heading into the break. The second half was all Iowa as Beathard first hit Kevonte Martin-Manley for a 23-yard touchdown in the final minute of the third quarter and then directed a 12 play, 79 yard drive resulting in Weisman's second touchdown run to put the game away with 5:10 to play.
Over the two seasons combined, the Hawkeyes went 4-7 following pre-bye victories over Purdue, the 2014 campaign (of course) being notoriously disastrous. After a bye the next week, Iowa went 3-5—losing four of its last five contests—resulting in Kirk Ferentz's now infamous "that's football" quote following the Hawkslayer Taxslayer Bowl loss to Tennessee.
2014 seems like a time from another era of Hawkeye football. Not only does it feel like a lifetime has passed since then, but it's also tough to believe a Ferentz-led squad could crumble like they did just seven years ago. The program is in a much better spot now and it's pretty safe to bet that no matter what the outcome on Saturday, there won't be a repeat of 2014.
Has it only been 60 Years?
The last time Iowa hit the field ranked in the top-two was of course in the 1985 season when the #1 Hawkeyes lost 22-13 at #8 Ohio State. Saturday will be the first time in 60 years Iowa plays as the #2 ranked team in the country. That last game was on October 14 1961 when the second-ranked Hawkeyes defeated Indiana 27-8 in Iowa City.
Incredibly, I was able to stumble on some game footage from that affair thanks to a really cool video someone uploaded on YouTube featuring the '61 Hawks.
Prior to that, Iowa was #2 in the Coaches Poll when it defeated Notre Dame 28-0 in South Bend in the final game of Forest Evashevski's coaching career with the Hawkeyes. Cue the grainy video!
As the ridiculously ancient video above shows, this season has already been historic in several ways. I never thought, in this current top-heavy college football world, that the Hawkeyes could crack the top-five of national polls this early in a season, let alone rise to #2 in both polls before Halloween.
It's been a riveting and exhausting opening half to what could be an all-time campaign for Iowa football and a victory this week over Purdue + the next 13 days off sounds like a perfect combination to me.
#GOIOWAAWESOME
