HLAS: Iowa looking for historic upset at the 'Shoe

Ohio Stadium is called the Horseshoe. For visiting teams, it's usually as fun as a horse kicking them in the head.

The Ohio State University is big. This semester, the OSU campus in Columbus had 55,014 registered students. The school has the nation's largest budget for athletics, $115 million. It's in a state with more than 11 million people.

And it has the Horseshoe, which holds more than 105,000 fans and the emotions of millions more.

Ohio State has won 390 games in The ‘Shoe. The Buckeyes are 51-5 there since the start of the 2002 season. The stadium is a giant and has been since it was the largest poured concrete structure in existence almost nine decades ago. The football program is a giant that lives in a giant.

This week, I asked Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz if people really understand what Ohio State has going for it.

“I'm not sure,” he said. “Probably not.”

A win over Iowa today would guarantee OSU a share of its fifth straight Big Ten title. Can you imagine five consecutive Big Ten football titles at Iowa, or anywhere else in the league including even Michigan or Penn State? No. But here it almost seems as likely to happen as not.

Ohio State is a university of renown, but its name conjures one primary image to the nation, and that's football. It's the second-winningest football team (by percentage points behind Oklahoma) of all FBS schools since 1950.

“They've got a lot of advantages like Texas does or like Georgia does,” Ferentz said, “and then they've made them work, too.

“There are probably eight to 10 schools in the country that you could name and say wow, they've got some real advantages. That doesn't guarantee success, either.”

But OSU plows its advantages into results. Here we are today, with upstart Iowa facing apparently long odds against kingpin Ohio State. The winner goes to the Rose Bowl.

Iowa has been perfect on the road this season and won in two of the league's genuine snakepits, Penn State and Wisconsin. But this place is a little different, a little more intimidating because of the opponent and perhaps the architecture. This place has had Iowa's number.

Iowa has lost by an average of 20 points in its last five appearances here, and hasn't scored more than 11 points in any of its last four visits. Now, with a second-year freshman making his first college start at quarterback, the Hawkeyes need things to be vastly different to go to Pasadena.

“We played in three - or four, actually - challenging situations, so it's not our first road trip this year,” Ferentz said. “We've gone on the road. We've handled it. We haven't let it be a distraction.

“From that standpoint I think that's certainly a positive. But I don't know if it's going to be enough for us. We're going to have to do everything right to win this football game.”

There will have been bigger upsets in college football this year than an Iowa win today. Like Purdue's home win over Ohio State on Oct. 17. But will there have been a bigger upset in Hawkeye annals if Iowa somehow pulls this off?

It's playing a giant that lives in a giant, and giants aren't known to be gentle or merciful.

Everything right, that's what Ferentz says his team must do to win. That would at least be a start.