Iowa’s loss to UCLA again changes what’s within reach for Hawkeyes in 2024

PASADENA, Calif. — Two vastly different scenes developed about a couple-hundred feet away from each other on Friday night in Pasadena.

Anyone in the seating bowl was treated to a postgame fireworks show while Katy Perry’s hit song “Firework” blared through the Rose Bowl speakers.

While UCLA owned the night like the Fourth of July, Iowa football faced a more humbling reality in the east tunnel as players left the locker room for the buses after their fourth loss of the season.

“They executed in the tough moments, and we couldn’t,” defensive end Deontae Craig told reporters in the tunnel, with the booming fireworks almost drowning him out.

Now at 6-4 with two games to go, the best Iowa can do is an 8-4 season where its best win might be against Wisconsin — a team that could still be fighting for bowl eligibility in the final two weeks of the season.

That does not have the same cachet as the College Football Playoff trip that quarterback Cade McNamara said before the season was a “very realistic goal for this team.”

Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz no longer can break Woody Hayes’ record for overall wins as a Big Ten member in the 2024 season. Ferentz has 202 wins, and Hayes’ record is 205. The best-case scenario for Ferentz’s record pursuit would be to win out, tie Hayes in the bowl game and then break the record early in 2025.

Ferentz’s path to the .600 career winning percentage necessary for eligibility in the College Football Hall of Fame has a slimmer margin for error, too. Iowa would need to win all three games (including the bowl game) for him to finish the 2024 season above the .600 mark.

Otherwise, Ferentz would need to lead the Hawkeyes to at least a 9-4 season in 2025 (when counting a bowl game) to achieve eligibility.

Regardless of what happened on Friday in Pasadena and what will happen in Iowa’s next two games, the Hawkeyes already are bowl-eligible.

Before this weekend, CBS Sports, The Athletic and the Action Network’s Brett McMurphy all projected the Hawkeyes to go to the ReliaQuest Bowl (formerly known as the Outback Bowl).

A trip to Tampa, Fla., still is not entirely out of the picture. Wisconsin went there last year with five regular-season losses, and Illinois went there with four in 2022.

But the Big Ten’s next tier of bowl games — the Music City Bowl, Pinstripe Bowl, Duke’s Mayo Bowl and maybe even the Rate Bowl (in order of selection) — may be increasingly likely destinations for the Hawkeyes after their latest loss.

Iowa went to the Music City Bowl two years ago, but it has not been to the Pinstripe Bowl since 2017. The Duke’s Mayo Bowl in Charlotte and Rate Bowl in Phoenix would be entirely new destinations for the Hawkeyes.

If there is any consolation for the Hawkeyes after what Ferentz described as a “disappointing night” in Pasadena, it’s that they now have a bye week to regroup and get healthier.

Iowa had to turn to Jackson Stratton — a walk-on quarterback who has the nickname “Shaggy” — in the second half against UCLA after Brendan Sullivan’s ankle sprain. (Cade McNamara and Marco Lainez were already injured and missed Saturday’s game.)

The team’s early-Saturday-morning arrival at The Eastern Iowa Airport kicked off a 15-day window for Sullivan and previous McNamara to recover from their injuries before Iowa visits Maryland on Nov. 23.

But after a game with 12 missed tackles (as tracked by Pro Football Focus), 211 rushing yards allowed and only 80 rushing yards gained, the Hawkeyes need to resolve some other issues to prevent another team from putting up firework-worthy results against them.

“One thing about football — you typically get what you deserve, and we certainly didn’t play well enough to expect to win tonight basically in any category,” Ferentz said.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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