Hawkeyes and their former Big Ten West brothers long for the good old days of 2023

A Saturday in recent years, when Iowa’s football team was battling (and twice succeeding) to win the Big Ten West, is a cold contrast to the present.

Oh, the passion that could have been on display today in Maryland, Minnesota and New Jersey. If only the division format not been scrapped by the Big Ten and the seven West Division teams been allowed to stay huddled together like winter travelers on an outdoor ‘L’ train platform in Chicago.

Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota would be sharing the West lead at 4-3, with 3-4 Wisconsin ready to pounce should the top three topple like houses of cards.

Iowa is at Maryland today. Minnesota hosts Penn State, and Illinois is at Rutgers. Instead of all being of monumental importance, they’re just -- dare I say it? -- football games.

There will be no West winner in the Big Ten championship this year, no chance for the West to improve on its 0-10 record against the East in Indianapolis.

Instead, fifth-ranked, unbeaten Indiana plays at No. 2 Ohio State today, with the winner sure to face No. 1 Oregon for the Big Ten title while No. 4 Penn State is in good shape to host a first-round game in the College Football Playoff.

This is an improvement to the system? Well, sure. But it seems unfair to all the lunch bucket teams of the Midwest who are working so hard to try to avoid going 6-6 overall, or even 5-7.

This might have been the Westiest of all years. The seven teams that formed that division are 9-20 in the league when not playing each other.

Iowa and Minnesota don’t even get the benefit of playing old West amigo Purdue this year, a team that would give Rutgers of 2018 and 2019 (0-18 in the conference) a run for its rottenness.

Not that the infusion of new blood has strengthened the conference overall. Oregon is really good and all that, but USC, UCLA and Washington are all behind Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota.

Still, the slights to the old West remain. Indiana of the old East is in the national Game of the Week with a chance to reach 11-0. Yes, the Indiana that was 3-24 in the Big Ten over the last three years. The Indiana that hasn’t won a bowl since 1991, hasn’t claimed a league title since 1967.

Nebraska of the old West keeps treading water with one coach after another while Curt Cignetti has turned water into wine at Indiana. That prompted a failed football coach-turned-U.S. Senator named Tommy Tuberville from SEC country to say “Look at Indiana. They went out and bought them a football team.”

Ah, the eloquence of a statesman. One who coached Cincinnati to a 4-8 record in 2016. That was five years before his replacement, Luke Fickell, led the Bearcats to 13 wins and a spot in the four-team national playoff.

Fickell, by the way, is 12-11 at Wisconsin after going 57-18 at Cincinnati. Wisconsin is one of the Big Ten West’s septuplets, and you don’t ride roughshod in the conference if you’re from that bunch.

Closer to home, though not really, Iowa’s game at Maryland will go unnoticed since it is being played at the same time as Indiana-Ohio State. When last we heard, the Hawkeyes’ quarterback situation resembled the number of passengers in one of those Chicago ‘L’ train cars. At its last stop. At 3:30 a.m.

Maryland has lost its last three games by an average of 20 points. No matter if its quarterback is Jackson Stratton or Samuel L. Jackson, Iowa can ill afford to succumb to a wobbly foe like the Terrapins.

Meanwhile, 8-2 Iowa State can keep its candle burning for its first 10-win season if it prevails at Utah tonight. Before the season, college football magazine impresario Phil Steele picked the Utes to win the Big 12 and with good reason. Naturally, the Utes are on a 6-game losing streak.

Iowa State and Iowa are playing conference games today that are over 2,000 miles apart. Why expect anything different in 2024?

It’s possible this season’s champs of both the Big Ten and Big 12 will be located west of the Rockies or at their foothills. Which is kind of odd, since neither had a team in Arizona, Colorado or Oregon a year ago.

Meanwhile, Indiana “bought them a football team.” One would guess Ohio State still has two nickels to rub together.

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