Purdue and Iowa soon to be two football strangers that pass in the night

Save your sentimentality for certain cities, songs or sweethearts.

Big Ten football? It’s less sentimental than a speeding ticket.

Purdue plays Iowa Saturday, as it has each year since 2011. They’ve been in the same division in the Big Ten’s 10-year history of divisional football play, which ends after this season.

This will be the 94th game between the Hawkeyes and Boilermakers. Only Minnesota (116 times) and Wisconsin (96) have played Iowa more.

Thursday, the Big Ten released its football opponents for its teams for 2024 through 2028. While the Hawkeyes have protected rivalries with Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin, Purdue suddenly becomes estranged from Iowa with no game against the Hawkeyes until 2026 and none in West Lafayette until 2028.

Iowa will play USC more in the next five years than it faces Illinois and Northwestern, and will play in Los Angeles three times (USC twice, UCLA once) in that period to just once at Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State.

After this year, there will be no Illinois-Iowa games until 2026 and none in Iowa City until 2028. Does that not seem odd?

Many is the fan who drives to Hawkeye road games. You want to do that next year, get your Iowa-Minnesota tickets ASAP. Iowa’s other four league trips are to Maryland, Michigan State, Ohio State and UCLA.

Eighteen teams, no divisions. Everyone will play each other at least twice per 5-year span, once at home.

Of course, the assumption the Big Ten will cut off expansion and be happy with 18 schools is naive. The 2024 schedule will be the third the league has issued. The first was assembled in 2018, four years before USC and UCLA joined the mix. The second came after their arrival. Then Oregon and Washington jumped off the Pac-12’s sinking ship.

Any day now, Iowa’s 2024 Big Ten schedule may include Bishop Sycamore, the University of Woolamaloo and Starfleet Academy.

At first, Northwestern and Maryland were coming to Kinnick along with locked-in Nebraska and Wisconsin. Then, it was UCLA and Maryland, with Northwestern tossed out.

Now, Northwestern is back, with Washington, and we shall see no signs of Maryland or UCLA. In fact, the Hawkeyes will play both of those teams on the road next year as part of their 2024 “Hawks Across America Tour.”

For those saying Iowa is returning to the Rose Bowl, that technically is true given it’s UCLA’s home stadium. But don’t call a UCLA football game in Pasadena “the Rose Bowl.” It’s more like something one might bump into when attending the neighboring Rose Bowl Flea Market.

UCLA’s first two home crowds this season were 43,705 and 38,343. If you call UCLA to ask what time its home game against Indiana is next year, the answer is “What time can you get here?”

When Iowa plays at UCLA next year, it may have as many fans as the Bruins. As Los Angeles entertainment options go, UCLA football ranks between attending tapings of “The Price is Right” and tours of the La Brea Tar Pits.

It’s probably better for the Hawkeyes to get Washington at home next year than this one. Michael Penix Jr. has thrown for 16 touchdowns and 1,999 yards in the Huskies’ first five games this season, all wins.

Penix is a sixth-year senior who spent his first four seasons at Indiana while nothing much happened there. Then he went to Seattle, and has thrown 47 touchdown passes in 18 games.

His team, and the Pac-12’s upper crust, play a game with which the Big Ten generally is unfamiliar.

Iowa, on the other hand, has just 12 TD passes in its last 18 games. But things can change. Like the 2024 schedule.

For now, USC, Oregon and Washington are a combined 15-0 entering this weekend. USC leads the nation in scoring at 53.6 points per game. Oregon is second at 51.6, Washington fourth at 46.0. The three have a combined 56 touchdown passes.

Sentimentality and nostalgia may become plentiful when it comes to Iowa football in the future. Oh, for the time when you could play Illinois, Northwestern and Purdue every season.

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