Counting down Iowa’s most-tantalizing 2021 football games: No. 2 Indiana

For Iowa’s most-tantalizing games 12 through 3, go to this page.

And now, No. 2:

Sept. 4: Indiana

Indiana's Tiawan Mullen and Micah McFadden were named to the Associated Press Preseason 2021 All-America Second Team Monday.

The same day, a former Big Ten assistant coach tweeted “A wise coach once pointed out that there was no wall of ‘Pre-season All-American’ pictures in our football building.....”

True, true. But this is Indiana, which hasn’t won a bowl game since 1991 and is in the AP preseason Top 25 for the first time since … wait for it … 1969.

Having two preseason second-team All-Americans is different for Indiana, which hasn’t had more than two players selected in any NFL draft since 1991.

Mullen is a cornerback, McFadden a linebacker. They’re good.

McFadden didn’t make ESPN’s list of the top 100 college players of 2001. Mullen did. So did Indiana quarterback Michael Penix Jr. And wide receiver Ty Fryfogle.

Good googly goo, the Hoosiers have studs on both sides of the ball.

Penix and McFadden have been signed by Sports Illustrated Indiana to do a 30-minute weekly live podcast at a Bloomington bar and grill during the season. It’s open to the public. It’s called “a five-figure deal.” The world has changed, college football fans.

Anyway, the talent on the Indiana team isn’t enough to make this the No. 2 most-tantalizing game on Iowa’s 2021 football schedule.

No, it’s that combined with the fact Indiana is preseason No. 17 on top of the fact this is Iowa’s season-opener. If the Hawkeyes win this game, they go to Iowa State 1-0 and they’re 1-0 in the Big Ten until they resume league play at Maryland on Oct. 1.

If the Hawkeyes lose? It’s a pretty rotten way to start a season with fairly high expectations.

You want to win a national championship — and we assume Iowa does, right? — you’re chopping down your margin of error to the size of a twig if you lose your first game.

You want to win the Big Ten West — and we know Iowa does — you’re reducing your chance in a significant way if you start 0-1.

This is high stakes for a season-opener, higher than ever seen before in the Kirk Ferentz era. That’s no hyperbole. Opening the season against a ranked Big Ten team? If you’re younger than 48, Iowa has never done that before in your lifetime.

On top of that, there has been no Hawkeye game since last December. On top of that, there has been no Hawkeye game at Kinnick Stadium open to the public since November 2019.

On top of that, there will be beer sales to the hoi polloi at Kinnick for a 2:30 p.m. game for the first time. What if two or three people in the stands can’t handle that new option and start a Pier 6 brawl that leads to commotion and chaos? Furthermore, why are all the best brawls at Pier 6?

There is a chance, albeit slim, that the two teams could meet exactly three months later, at the Dec. 4 Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis.

Stranger things have happened. Let me remind you: Two Indiana football players — football, not basketball — are making good money to do a weekly half-hour podcast.

The world keeps changing, my babies. Not to worry. I’ll guide you through it.