Ranking Iowa’s 2014 football games: No. 5 Minnesota

This is a 12-to-1 countdown of Iowa's most-appealing football games this season. No. 1 is the most-appealing. We started with No. 12 Ball State. Purdue was No. 11, Northern Iowa No. 10, Iowa State No. 9, Indiana No. 8, Illinois No. 7, and Pittsburgh No. 6. All previous posts in this countdown can be found here.

No. 5: Minnesota (Nov. 8 in Minneapolis)

Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium quickly grew into Iowa's most-loathed football venue.

The first two times the Hawkeyes played at the on-campus stadium were 2010 and 2011. They were favored by 15 points in both visits. They lost both, by a total of four points.

And those were two Iowa teams that finished the season with winning records.

The Hawkeyes whipped the Gophers in Iowa City in '12, then returned to Minnesota last year. This time, they completely dominated the Gophers, winning 23-7 and outgaining their hosts 464 yards to 165.

Despite that bludgeoning, Jerry Kill's men carved out an 8-5 record and the program's winningest season since 2003. They couldn't compete with Iowa at home, but they did defeat Nebraska and Penn State there, and were 8-2 before closing the season with losses to Wisconsin, Michigan State and Syracuse.

The latter was in the Texas Bowl. Minnesota has a 6-game losing streak in bowls. Its last postseason victory came against — hang on to something — Alabama. Yes, that was pre-Nick Saban, in 2004.

Anyway, through the quirks of Big Ten scheduling Iowa is headed to Minnesota for the fourth time in the last five years this November. How is that possible, you ask, when the two have been in the same division all that time?

Who knows? But they'll go back and forth from next season into eternity, or at least until the Big Ten again expands and changes its schedules. Maybe Alabama will join the Big Ten with the sole intent to avenge that defeat to the Gophers.

I rank this as Iowa's fifth-most compelling game because I look at Minnesota's schedule and Iowa's schedule and see the possibility that both teams could have shiny records when they meet in Game 9.

Minny's nonconference games are against Eastern Illinois, Middle Tennessee State, at TCU and back home against San Jose State. Then it plays at Michigan, Northwestern and Purdue at home, and at Illinois. So the Gophers could be 6-2, even 7-1. Or 4-4.

They better be at least 6-2, or they may not go to another third-tier bowl. Because their closing four games are Iowa, Ohio State, at Nebraska and at Wisconsin.

The more I think about this, the more I wonder why I have this game ranked this high. It's probably because the memories of Iowa's two losses at TCF Bank are still fresh. And, it's because Iowa can ill afford to lose this year's game up north if it is to win the Big Ten West.

And also, you know, Floyd.