Iowa football team has given itself a chance for a November to remember

November has Thanksgiving, Veterans Day, World Kindness Day and National Fountain Pen Day.

They all fit into the 30-day fall festival known as Mental Toughness Month. For college football, anyway.

“November is kind of mental toughness month, if you will,” Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said Saturday. “There's a lot of stuff going on. Weather, you name it. There's a lot of — you can come up with a million excuses why you can't do well, but really no one cares. It's about pushing the thing forward. Our guys have done a really good job responding to that.”

Ferentz’s Hawkeyes powered through October without a scratch, and overpowered Minnesota Saturday, 41-3. That took them to 6-2 overall, 4-1 in the Big Ten, and set up what will be one of the most-anticipated games at Kinnick Stadium in quite some time, their Nov. 8 game against 7-1 Oregon.

Is November the Hawkeyes’ month? Let’s just say it’s been pretty good to them. Iowa is 21-3 over the last six Novembers, 11-1 at Kinnick.

The Hawkeyes are quarterbacked by Mark Gronowski, whose South Dakota State teams were 7-0 over the last two Novembers before heading into the FCS playoffs,

There was plenty of grumbling about Gronowski in the first half of this season. His passing numbers have been mundane at best by major-college standards, which was more of the same from the last few Iowa seasons.

His defining statistic, of course, is his won-lost record as a starter. College football’s all-time winningest quarterback is 55-8, with one of the losses being the Jackrabbits’ season-opener at Iowa in 2022.

You could say the Jacks survived that, since they went on to win their next 14 games and capture the first of two straight FCS championships.

This year’s Hawkeyes were 3-2 at the end of September with one-score losses to Iowa State and Indiana. You could say they survived that.

“There's a couple of other teams that I've been on that lost earlier the season, and we were able to rally off of that,” Gronowski said Saturday. “We were able to get better every single week, continue to improve, get closer as a team.

“Maybe because of those losses, I feel like this has been a really great sign of our offense, our team, our special teams defense, and then what's also great in that locker room. We had a lot of fun in there, but we all feel like we could have done better.

“Our offense was not hot in the second half. We could have done a lot better there. We just feel like there's so much more room to improve, and guys are still hungry, which has been a part of every winning team that I've been on in the past.”

That comment and others heard from Hawkeye players may not bode well for Iowa’s four remaining opponents.

“We saw a bunch of plays tonight that we could have either completed or ran better, ran better routes or whatnot,” Iowa wide receiver/return specialist Kaden Wetjen said. “There's so much left on the table.”

Saturday was the 23rd time Gronowski has started a college game and won by at least 30 points. As a sixth-year senior, he doesn’t throw parties after blowout wins along the way.

“Even though we won 41-3 today,” Gronowski said, “all of us in there can look back at the film and be like ‘We missed on that one. We’ve got to execute better on this series. We could have done better here and made that game an even bigger blowout.’

“To have that kind of want to stay hungry, with a want to get better even when we have a 41-3 win, that's exactly what you want in a football team and that's the reason why we can continue to improve each week.”

On CBS’ postgame studio show after its Minnesota-Iowa telecast, Aaron Taylor said “Iowa is a dangerous team because it’s getting better week by week. … If you’re a fan of (Oregon and USC), you do not want to play this team right now.”

“We talk about the CFP looking for a fourth Big Ten team,” Rick Neuheisel said on the same show. “Put Iowa on the list of candidates.”

That chatter ends if the Hawkeyes don’t beat Oregon. The two don’t play until they clash at the end of the next week. Mental Toughness Month is nigh.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com