Iowa-Michigan Fun Facts: Wolverines are dying out. Also, info on a football game.

Didn’t we just do this two years, Iowa playing Michigan in the Big Ten football title game? Well, we have elections and the Ryder Cup every two years, and they’re fun. If you’re into those sorts of things, that is.

On with the Fun Facts:

1. Michigan has won 18 outright Big Ten football championships including the last two. Iowa has won four, the latest in 1985.

2. The first meeting between the two was in Detroit in 1900. Iowa won, 28-5.

3. Michigan is ranked No. 2. It was ranked No. 2 when the Hawkeyes beat the Wolverines 14-13 in Iowa City in 2016. It also was ranked No. 2 when it beat Iowa 42-3 in Indianapolis two years ago.

4. The Wolverines are first in the nation in scoring defense at 10.3 points allowed per game. The Hawkeyes are fourth at 12.2.

5. Michigan allowed 24 points in each of its last two games. Iowa hasn’t allowed more than 16 in its last eight games.

6. Michigan’s Blake Corum leads the nation in rushing touchdowns with 22.

7. Iowa’s Tory Taylor leads the nation in punts with 79.

8. Current Hawkeyes Cade McNamara and Erick All hooked up on a 5-yard touchdown pass when Iowa lost to Michigan in the 2021 Big Ten championship. They played for the Wolverines.

9. Michigan leads the nation in fewest penalty yards per game. Iowa is fourth.

10. Iowa has scored 1.32 points per possession. The previous low for a 10-win team was Florida’s 1.62 in 2015. The average number of wins for a team with 1.3-1.4 points per drive is 3.5. (Hat tip: @Hawkeyegamefilm on X.)

11. J.J. McCarthy has 46 career touchdown passes for Michigan. Tom Brady had 35. He did have 649 in NFL regular-season games, however, and 85 more in the playoffs.

12. The only Michigan quarterback to throw six touchdown passes in a game was Jake Rudock, in 2015. He passed for 34 TDs and 4,819 yards for Iowa in 2013-14. After five years in the NFL, he now is in the University of Michigan Medical School.

13. Combined, Iowa and Michigan have played just three ranked teams this season.

14. Iowa isn’t the only team with injury woes. Michigan offensive guard Zac Zinter suffered a broken tibia and fibula last Saturday against Ohio State. He had been projected as a first-round NFL draft pick in 2024.

15. Hawkeyes Coach Kirk Ferentz was born in Royal Oak, Mich., 44 miles from Ann Arbor.

16. Wolverines Coach Jim Harbaugh was a 7-year-old who got hit by a mail truck and suffered a broken leg in Iowa City when he lived there in 1971.

17. Iowa and Michigan both have a Lansing and a Marquette. Iowa’s are 27 miles apart. Michigan’s are 395 miles apart.

18. This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Wednesday it is adding wolverines in the Lower 48 to the list of species threatened with extinction.

19. The World-Famous St. Elmo Shrimp Cocktail Eating Championship will be held in downtown Indianapolis Saturday at 3 p.m.

20. Paul Simon wrote the song “America” while in Saginaw, Mich., in 1966 to do a show for the Saginaw YMCA.