Framing Another 10-Win, Iowa Football Season

Hawkeyes Head to B1G Title Game at 10-2

Iowa players swarm the field before a game against Minnesota on Nov. 13, 2021 at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

IOWA CITY, Iowa - As Iowa celebrated its comeback victory at Nebraska Friday, quarterbacks Coach Ken O’Keefe offered up a history lesson.

“He said. “You freshmen don’t know how hard it is to get a 10-win season,” rookie receiver Keagan Johnson said. “I’m realizing at this level it’s not easy.”

Thanks to 22 unanswered points, Iowa won a fifth straight game in Memorial Stadium. Only Texas can make the same claim over the last seven decades.

It also gave the Hawkeyes a 10-2 record and their 10th 10-win season. Seven of them have come under Coach Kirk Ferentz. He was also the offensive line coach on two of Hayden Fry’s three 10-victory teams.

“It was a gutty, determined game they played,” Ferentz said. “They’ve really been doing this all season long.”

In the eight seasons before Fry came to Iowa in 1979, the Hawkyes won a total of 22 football games. That included five-win seasons in 1976 and 1977 under Bob Commings. That leaves just 12 wins for the other six seasons, including 0-11 in 1973, 1-10 in 1971 and 2-9 in 1978. Iowa averaged 2.8 victories in the 18 seasons between the end of the Forest Evashevski era and the start of the Fry era.

Fry’s 1985 Big Ten championship team was the first to win 10 games (10-2). Fry-coached Iowa teams also went 10-3 in 1987 and 10-1-1 in 1991. The 1991 team is the Hawkeyes’ only 10-win season Ferentz hasn’t been involved with.

Ferentz has coached a team to 12 victories once (2015), 11 victories twice (2009, 2002) and 10 victories four times (2021, 2019, 2004, 2003). Fry averaged 7.1 victories over his 20 seasons at Iowa. Ferentz, in his 23rd season, has averaged 7.5 victories.

Friday’s comeback, and Minnesota’s victory over Wisconsin the following day, gave the Hawkeyes their second outright Big Ten West Division title since 2015. They’ll be a significant underdog against Michigan in Saturday’s title game at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind. Upset the Wolverines and Iowa will go to the Rose Bowl for the seventh time. Lose and there will still be a bowl game to play.

“It is a special year, any time you can win 10 games,” Ferentz said.

Iowa has won 16 of its last 18 games, which has put Ferentz on the doorstep of eligibility for the College Football Hall of Fame. That requires a winning percentage of .600. Ferentz is currently at .595. This is the Hawkeyes’ best run since a streak of 19 wins over 21 games bridging the 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons.

It was also Iowa’s 19th Big Ten triumph over the last three seasons, the best run since 20 wins from 2002-2004. Iowa has had at least six conference wins in each of the last three seasons, a first for the Ferentz era.

These Hawkeyes remind Ferentz of the 1981 team, which lived on grit, resilience and camaraderie to end a streak of 19 consecutive non-winning seasons with an unexpected run that landed them in the Rose Bowl. Ferentz was in his first season as the offensive line coach. Iowa football is not always pretty. Teams that rely on grit, resilience and camaraderie rarely are. National critics are quick to jump the Hawkeyes, despite their success, because it doesn’t follow a traditional blueprint for success.

During Friday’s game, Stewart Mandel of the Athletic tweeted, “Is the Iowa-Nebraska Heroes Trophy named for the people who watch all four quarters?”

It was pointed out by ESPN’s Chris Fallica that Friday marked the first time since at least 1978, and probably ever, that a 3-8 team was favored over a 9-2 team.

“We’re not the prettiest car in the lot, but we get from point A to point B pretty well,” Ferentz said Friday.

The Hawkeyes have won 10 games while averaging 299.1 yards of total offense, the fewest of any of the 10-win teams. The 2004 team averaged 312.7 yards. The Hawkeyes have also scored just 18 touchdowns in 41 trips to the red zone.

“We find a way to win,” center Tyler Linderbaum said. “That’s been the story of the season.” Defense and special teams have been stellar.

Ferentz told the Big Ten Network that Iowa is “not a stat team, other than turnovers. We do OK there.”

Friday’s victory was clinched on Jamari Harris’s interception. It was the nation’s-best 22nd interception of the season for the Hawkeyes. Dane Belton had five, Riley Moss four, Matt Hankins three, Jack Koerner and Harris two each and Jack Campbell, Seth Benson, Jestin Jacobs, Kaevon Merriweather, Terry Roberts and Quinn Schulte one apiece. Iowa has 86 picks since the 2017 season.

The Hawkeyes have a plus 19 turnover margin in their 10 victories, compared to minus six in their two losses.

Special teams, coached by LeVar Woods, have been outstanding. Caleb Shudak has made 22 of 25 field goals, four of them at least 50 yards long. Punter Tory Taylor has averaged 45.1 yards per kick. He has 21 punts of at least 50 yards.

Iowa has rallied from double-digit deficits three times this season, against Penn State, Illinois and Nebraska. That matches the number of double-figure comebacks the previous five seasons combined.

“Coach Woods, he’s the best,” Henry Marchese said. “It’s an honor to play for him.” Marchese is a prime example of what Iowa football is all about.

He’s a senior who has never started a down. And Iowa would probably not be playing in Indianapolis without him.

Marchese could have given up, and quit when things didn’t go his way. Instead, he dug deep and looked for a way to help his team. He stayed the course at Iowa, where his father, John, lettered on Iowa’s first 10-win team in 1985.

Iowa trailed Illinois two weeks ago, 10-0, when Charlie Jones returned a kickoff a school-record 100 yards for a touchdown. Marchese had the key block to spring him.

And then with his team trailing at Nebraska in the fourth quarter, 21-9, Marchese snuck around right end, dived and blocked a punt that teammate Kyler Fisher caught and returned for a 14-yard touchdown that set the table for Iowa’s comeback.

“I think it’s probably a good representation of our football team, a guy who hasn’t started a down offensively or defensively but has been such a huge contributor to special teams for us,” Ferentz said. “I’m really proud of him, and proud of a lot of guys I could name like that who get the value and how important it is.”

Marchese’s team-first attitude is a big piece to Iowa’s winning culture.

“”I love the game, love the camaraderie, love my teammates,” Marchese said. “I’m just trying to contribute to my team.”