Ranking Iowa's 2014 football games: No. 11 Purdue

This is a 12-to-1 countdown of Iowa's most-appealing football games this season. No. 1 is the most-appealing. We started with No. 12 Ball State. Here's No. 11:

Sept. 27 — at Purdue

The shifting divisional alignment in Big Ten football means there are quirks in the schedule.

One of them is Iowa hosting Wisconsin for a second-straight year. Another is the Hawkeyes playing at Purdue for a second-consecutive season.

The former has more allure than the latter in Iowa.

The only thing that was surprising looking back at last year's Hawkeyes-Boilermakers game at Ross-Ade Stadium is that it was scoreless after one quarter. It was a dominant win of Iowa, and one of 11 defeats for Purdue.

The Hawkeyes outgained the Boilers, 509 yards to 266. Iowa scored 31 straight points in one stretch on the way to a 38-14 cruise.

Iowa's Jordan Canzeri rushed 20 times for 165 yards. He didn't even start the game.

Attendance for that Nov. 9 game: 41,038. Many of those were Hawkeye fans. It wasn't the Big Ten's best showcase game.

Purdue averaged 63,549 fans per home game 10 years ago. It hasn't topped 48,063 per game in any of the last four seasons.

Nine years ago, the Iowa-Purdue game at West Lafayette had a crowd of 64,785. Two years before that, Iowa-Purdue drew 60,058. Purdue football was vibrant when Joe Tiller was the coach. You may remember a quarterback he had by the name of Drew Brees. Nifty player.

Well, those days are gone. Purdue hasn't been in the Top 25 since October, 2007. Darrell Hazell has a ways to go to get the Boilers back there. With 19 returning starters, they certainly should be better this season than last year. But by how much?

So, this is the least-enticing Big Ten game on Iowa's schedule even though it's the Hawkeyes' conference-opener. Which means the league has at least a semblance of showmanship. You don't start your show with the headliners.