Iowa football’s 1985 team will reunite for 40th anniversary during Homecoming game against No. 11 Indiana

IOWA CITY — All Bill Happel wanted as a kid was to become an Iowa Hawkeye.

His dad played football for Iowa, playing in the Rose Bowl in 1958. Happel heard all the stories as a kid, and he wanted his shot at a black and gold uniform, too.

But Happel didn’t expect his journey with Iowa football to be quite as spectacular.

“I always kind of wanted to be a Hawkeye anyway, so it was kind of a dream come true,” Happel told The Gazette. “But to have it finish off in a season like we had, and going to the Rose Bowl and all that stuff, was a very special year of football.”

Forty years after Iowa’s iconic 1985 football season ended, the Hawkeyes are reuniting at Kinnick Stadium during the program’s annual Homecoming game against No. 11 Indiana. Though the ’85 team didn’t get a Rose Bowl win themselves, that season still remains a catalyst in the program’s history.

“A lot of great memories from a coaching standpoint, from the players. It was kind of a storybook year, if you will,” said head coach Kirk Ferentz, who was the offensive line coach that season. “It's great to have those guys back. They're going to have a hell of a time.”

Many of the former Hawkeyes haven’t been back to Kinnick since graduating from the university. Happel, who still lives in Cedar Rapids, goes to games every year, but hasn’t seen many of his former teammates in decades.

Since that season ended, 10 players who were on the team went on to have NFL careers, including quarterback Chuck Long — the 1985 Heisman Trophy runner-up.

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Long finished that year with 26 touchdowns and nearly 3,000 passing yards, often relying on Happel as a target. Former head coach Hayden Fry recruited Long out of high school, and Long later shared in a story with The Gazette that he wouldn’t have played college football if it weren’t for Fry.

“I got recruited by Northern Illinois and Northwestern, but only because Iowa was recruiting me,” Long wrote in his story on Fry’s impact, following the coach’s death in 2019. “If Iowa didn’t recruit me ... who knows where I’d be?”

Fry’s coaching staff that season also included then-assistants who’ve went on to become coaching legends across the country. Dan McCarney, Bob Stoops, Bill Snyder and Barry Alvarez, among others, all held collegiate head coaching jobs — most becoming the winningest coaches in their respective school’s history.

“I think at one time, we had the winningest coach in Wisconsin, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas State and Iowa State history on that staff,” Happel said. “I don't think we knew we had a great staff. I don't think any one of us could have expected the success that the entire staff went on to have, but it's been a lot of fun watching them.”

It was a team of destiny, as Happel described it. The Hawkeyes knew they had something special that season. After defeating Texas in the Freedom Bowl the season before, Iowa had the opportunity to fight for a Big Ten title.

It did just that, holding the No. 1 ranking in the country for five weeks. They beat Michigan on a last-second field goal in a 1-2 battle, and lost just one conference game all season.

Ask many Iowa fans, and they’ll tell you a story about the ’85 team. Ask the ones who were on that team, and they’ll tell you they’re excited to just be together again, standing arm-in-arm and reminiscing about that time.

Then continue cheering for the current Hawkeyes, in the endeavors they’ll embark on.

“It's like any type of reunion, or class reunion,” Happel said. “It's just so much fun and it's so easy to dive right back into it and tell the same stories. It just does not seem that long ago.”

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