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Fun Facts: Iowa-USC football. Looks like another perfect day. I love L.A.
Only one major-college football player has scored a touchdown in all nine games this season. He will play in this game.
Nov. 13, 2025 10:18 am, Updated: Nov. 13, 2025 12:10 pm
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You know what’s fun? Los Angeles, that’s what.
Century Boulevard? We love it! Victory Boulevard! We love it. Santa Monica Boulevard? We love it! Sixth Street? We love it! We love it! We love it! We love L.A.!
So here are Fun Facts for Saturday’s Iowa-USC football game in the heart of Los Angeles:
- Several decades ago, some derisively called Los Angeles “Double Dubuque” because people felt too many Midwesterners had moved there.
- The Trojans are second in the nation in total offense (503.2 yards per game). The Hawkeyes are fourth nationally in total defense (250.2 ypg).
- USC is 3-0 in Big Ten home games, with an average winning margin of 17.7 points.
- Iowa has allowed 13.0 points per game, which would be the lowest in a single season under defensive coordinator Phil Parker.
- USC’s Makai Lemon averages 104 receiving yards per game. No Hawkeye has more than 75 receiving yards in a game.
- Iowa has lost its last five regular-season games in the Pacific time zone. The last win was in 1987, at Arizona.
- USC punter Sam Johnson previously played at Alabama, Jackson State and Valparaiso. This is Iowa’s 10th game, and Johnson will be just the fourth punter the Hawkeyes have faced this season who isn’t from Australia.
- The 58-yard field goal Iowa’s Drew Stevens made against Oregon last Saturday tied for the second-longest in the NCAA this season. The longest was the 63-yarder of Iowa State’s Kyle Konrardy against South Dakota.
- Stevens has 12 career field goals of 50-plus yards. The NCAA record is 16, by Tony Franklin of Texas A&M. He played from 1975-1978, when kickers were allowed to kick off a two-inch tee. Franklin tried 38 field goals from that distance. Stevens has tried 18.
- Iowa has played in 37 bowl games. Its two highest-scoring performances were in southern California, a 55-17 win over Texas in the 1984 Freedom Bowl in Anaheim and a 49-24 victory over USC in the 2019 Holiday Bowl in San Diego.
- USC quarterback Jordan Maiava has passed for 15 touchdowns and rushed for five. Iowa QB Mark Gronowski has rushed for 12 touchdowns and passed for five.
- Gronowski is the only player in the nation to score touchdowns in all nine games he’s played this season.
- USC linebackers coach Rob Ryan was the defensive coordinator for four different NFL teams between 2004 and 2015. He was on the Las Vegas Raiders coaching staff from 2022-2024.
14. The first meeting between the two teams was 100 years ago, in Los Angeles. The Trojans won, 18-0. Iowa’s quarterback was Nick Kutsch, known as “Cowboy Nick.”
15. Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz was the Cleveland Browns’ offensive line coach when they beat the Los Angeles Rams 42-14 at the L.A. Coliseum on Dec. 26, 1993 before a crowd of 34,155. Bill Belichick was the Browns’ head coach. Nick Saban was their defensive coordinator.
16. Los Angeles and Cedar Rapids both have a Hollywood Boulevard. Los Angeles and Iowa City both have a Melrose Avenue.
17. Yogi Roth will be the analyst for the BTN telecast of this game. Roth directed a documentary film called “Life in a Walk,” about trekking the Camino de Santiago in Spain with his father.
18. A free man living in Florida at the time, O.J. Simpson attended a USC practice in Davie, Fla., in 2002 It was a few days before the Trojans played Iowa in the Orange Bowl. “It’s great to see O.J. come out,” USC Coach Pete Carroll said after the practice.
19. In 1981, Prince opened for the Rolling Stones for shows at the L.A. Coliseum. At the first one, Prince stopped his set in the fourth song because of all the booing.
20. Iowa’s two Eastern Iowa representatives in the U.S. Congress, Ashley Hinson and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, were USC students. Miller-Meeks earned her master’s degree in education at the university in 1980. Hinson earned a degree in broadcast journalism in 2004. In 2014 she was described as “an avid Trojans fan!” on USC’s Annenberg Media Center alumni website.
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