A rare bang-bang start of a football schedule for Iowa Hawkeyes

Now that the first week of the season has arrived for the Iowa football team, let’s not pretend this isn’t a weird beginning.

Weird isn’t bad in every case. In this case, it’s very good and interesting.

The Hawkeyes starting the season with a nationally-ranked opponent is unfamiliar indeed. The Hawkeyes opening the season with two ranked opponents is something many of you have never seen and those who did may not remember it.

And the last time an Iowa season-opener featured two ranked teams? Dwight Eisenhower was president.

Saturday, it’s No. 17 Indiana at No. 18 Iowa. Is Indiana for real? It was 8-5 in 2010, 6-2 last year. It beat Penn State, Michigan and Wisconsin in 2021. Its loss at Ohio State was by just 42-35, and it gained more yards (490) against the Buckeyes than anyone but Alabama.

But is it a genuine No. 17 team? I don’t know. Penn State was No. 7, Wisconsin was No. 12, Michigan No. 16 and Minnesota No. 19 in last year’s AP preseason Top 25, and none of them were anything special.

The last time Iowa played a ranked team in its opener was 2000, against No. 8 Kansas State in Kansas City’s Arrowhead Stadium. It was no contest, with Bill Snyder’s Wildcats winning, 27-7. It was as hot as August in Kansas City, which it was.

Iowa didn’t win that season until its sixth game. There have been no 0-5 starts since that season. Or 0-4 starts. Or 0-3 starts.

In fact, the Hawkeyes hadn’t had an 0-2 start from 2001 through 2019. Then they began last season with a defeat at Purdue and one at home against Northwestern. The two losses were by a total of four points. Had Iowa won both contests … well, it didn’t.

Assuming Iowa State doesn’t lose to Northern Iowa in Week 1 and fall completely out of the Top 25 — the Cyclones dropped their season-opener at home to Louisiana last fall — ISU will be ranked and ranked high when it hosts Iowa on Sept. 11.

Which means the Hawkeyes would be starting a season against two ranked opponents for the first time since 1974.

In 1973 and 1974, Iowa opened with Michigan and UCLA. In ‘73, the Wolverines were No. 5 and the Bruins No. 18 when they played Iowa. The Hawkeyes lost both.

In ‘74, Michigan was 16th and UCLA 12th. Iowa beat the Bruins in Iowa City, 21-10.

The last time Iowa beat ranked teams in its first two games was 1960. The Hawkeyes downed No. 10 Oregon State, 22-12, and followed it with a 42-0 plastering of No. 6 Northwestern in Evanston.

The Oregon State game was the most-recent Iowa season-opener that featured two ranked teams playing each other.

Starting this season with two ranked foes obviously gives Iowa a heck of a potential launchpad. Log wins against two teams like that, come home to play Kent State and Colorado State, and you’re sitting firmly in the top 10 and are on the lips of people who are engaging in way-way-premature playoff talk.

Yeah, this is different. It’s the first time Iowa is hosting a Power Five conference team in its season-opener since Nebraska in 1999. Here are the teams Iowa has opened with at Kinnick since 2001:

Kent State, Akron, Miami (Ohio), Kent State, Ball State, Montana, Maine, Northern Iowa, Eastern Illinois, Tennessee Tech, Northern Illinois, Northern Iowa, Illinois State, Miami (Ohio), Wyoming, Northern Illinois and Miami (Ohio).

This is weird. This is the Big Ten on Sept. 4. This is a ranked visitor in Kinnick in Week 1. This is jumping into the fire.

You can climb a mountain

You can swim the sea

You can jump into the fire

But you'll never be free

That Harry Nilsson song lyric has nothing to do with this, but so what? Would you have preferred this little ditty from Nilsson instead?

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