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Iowa-Missouri Music City Bowl Fun Facts: Teams meet for the second time in last 114 years
The Hawkeyes and Tigers will clash in a city of losers -- professional sports-wise, that is
Dec. 30, 2024 9:03 am
The Gazette offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
1. This is Monday’s only bowl game. Television ratings show college football is wise to avoid going head-to-head with the NFL’s Monday night game.
2. Iowa is 6-7 against Missouri. The first 12 meetings were between 1892 and 1910. The other was the Hawkeyes’ 27-24 Insight Bowl win in 2010.
3. Marcus Coker had an Iowa bowl-record 219 rushing yards in that Insight Bowl.
4. Micah Hyde scored the winning points for the Hawkeyes in that game on a 72-yard interception return for a touchdown with 5:32 left. Hyde had a pick-6 for the Buffalo Bills 11 years later, one of his 24 career NFL interceptions. He is on the Bills’ practice squad today, and will at season’s end.
5. Only three of Iowa’s 11 FBS regular-season opponents had winning regular-season records.
6. Jerry Drinkwitz, the father of Missouri Coach Eli Drinkwitz, was an all-Iowa Conference running back for Luther College in 1965.
7. The one Iowa quarterback who has played in a Music City Bowl is recennt Auburn transfer Hank Brown. He completed 7 of 9 passes for 132 yards in the Tigers’ 31-13 Music City Bowl loss to Maryland last year.
8. Before the start of bowl season, Iowa was 121st in the nation in first-half scoring, seventh in second-half scoring.
9. Missouri starting quarterback Brady Cook was voted the SEC’s Scholar-Athlete of the Year by the league’s coaches for the second-straight year. Cook was a magna cum laude graduate in December 2022 and is working on his MBA.
10. Cook has red hair and attended Chaminade High School in St. Louis, so he is known as the Ginger God from Chaminade. It rhymes.
11. Iowa leads the nation in fewest penalties per play, fewest penalties, and fewest penalty yards.
12. Missouri is 23rd in the AP Top 25, below five other SEC teams. The Tigers lost to No. 11 Alabama and No. 14 South Carolina, and didn’t play No. 2 Georgia, No. 4 Texas or No. 7 Tennessee.
13. Five Big Ten teams are ranked. Iowa lost to Ohio State and didn’t play No. 1 Oregon, No. 5 Penn State, No. 9 Indiana or No. 21 Illinois.
14. Iowa and Missouri had a four-year agreement to play from 2005 through 2008. Missouri backed out of the first two years to schedule other opponents. Iowa then voided the final two years of the deal.
15. The Tigers had just one winning season from 2015 to 2022, but are 20-5 since.
16. Missouri has a walk-on offensive lineman named Chace Missouri. He is from Georgia.
17. Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell is a part-time DJ and has a music degree from Brown University.
18. Nashville’s three major league professional sports teams -- the NFL Titans, NHL Predators and MLS Nashville SC -- all had or are having losing seasons this year.
19. Missouri and Tennessee are the only two U.S. states that share a border with eight other states. Including each other.
20. Nashville is currently building a 60,000-seat stadium to replace the one that now hosts the Music City Bowl. According to Tennessee Lookout, taxpayers of Nashville and Tennessee will pay $2.3 billion on stadium bonds, the largest sports subsidy in U.S. history.
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