IOWA CITY, Iowa — A few days before the 2023 Christmas holiday and their ensuing trip to Orlando for the Citrus Bowl, roughly a dozen Iowa defensive players met at Pullman Bar & Diner to blow off post-finals steam and dig into some of the best burgers in Iowa.
Their dinner wasn’t planned, just some football players hanging out in downtown Iowa City for perhaps the last time together. Their conversation naturally shifted from upcoming opponent Tennessee to the 2024 season. Eight of them had NFL options, while six could use an extra college season because of the 2020 pandemic.
One by one, they expressed how much they wanted to return. The Iowa defense led the nation in yards per play allowed for the second straight year and their collective belief was another year together could improve their draft stock while they made similar money through NIL as mid-to-late-round picks. As a 10-win team and the defending Big Ten West Division champions with an advantageous schedule, the Hawkeyes harbored College Football Playoff hopes. Ultimately, everyone who could come back, save for All-American cornerback Cooper DeJean, chose to return.
Fast forward to an October Saturday night in East Lansing, Mich. One of the nation’s best defenses had its worst game in nearly a decade. The Hawkeyes missed tackles at an unusual rate, gave up more than 400 yards and failed to force a punt in a 32-20 loss to Michigan State. It was Iowa’s third loss, which is likely a fatal statistic for the inaugural 12-team CFP.
In a division-less 18-team Big Ten, Iowa no longer can wiggle through its neighbors for an outside shot at a championship upset. For the last three seasons, the Hawkeyes entered the season finale with a chance to win the West Division or the title already secured. Twice they were victorious and once they lost by a touchdown. Now, as the leaves change colors and the sound of combines harvesting corn echo throughout the state, Iowa’s season goals have expired before Halloween. Even with a 40-14 win against Northwestern on Saturday, it begs the question, now what for Iowa?
“The goal is to win every game. When we lost our first one (against Iowa State), that kind of went out the window,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. “You have to be careful how you frame goals, how you discuss them. You have to keep things adjustable, especially when you play in a conference like this. It’s just part of the deal.”
Ferentz, the longest-tenured coach in the FBS, has been in this position before. After an unbeaten Big Ten campaign in 2002, the Hawkeyes held hopes for a shared 2003 conference title entering the season’s final three weeks. But a loss to Purdue and quarterback Kyle Orton ended Iowa’s dreams of a second consecutive Big Ten title.
“Specifically, I did have the thought going back to ’03,” Ferentz said. “That was our third loss that year. I remember (linebacker) Grant Steen really being emotional in the locker room. It struck me. He was thinking about a national championship, all that stuff, the playoffs, whatever it may have been. It struck me. I wasn’t expecting that. Had that thought this week.
“At the end of the day, that season turned out really well. We had a really good season. Guys did a great job, finished up strong. I think you just have to be flexible with your thinking that way. You’ve got to communicate that to your players. It’s still all about this week. It’s a weekly conference, I’ll keep saying that because it is.”
With two weeks remaining in the 2003 season, motivation wasn’t lacking for those Hawkeyes. They swept rivals Minnesota and Wisconsin to finish with double-digit victories and a top-10 ranking. But this year, after losing at Michigan State and beating Northwestern, there are four games left in this campaign for Iowa (5-3, 3-2 Big Ten).
Ferentz nervously plays out every scenario in his mind for upcoming games, starting even before he meets with his team on Monday mornings. Sometimes the feeling lasts through the opening kickoff. Before facing Iowa State in a highly anticipated top-10 showdown in 2021, Ferentz paced throughout the team hotel in Urbandale before another assistant told him to calm down because “it’s the first time any of (Iowa State’s coaches) have ever experienced this. And they’re not going to handle it well.” Iowa won that game 27-17.
“You may have figured out, I’m kind of a doom-and-gloom guy,” Ferentz said. “I always come up with the bad scenarios that could happen.”
That applies evenly for Ferentz, from high-achieving seasons to campaigns not culminating in a divisional championship. For most of his career, his teams have bounced back from disappointment to finish strong. The Hawkeyes are 18-1 since 2019 in November games, which includes two seasons when the math didn’t add up to a divisional opportunity. But with high expectations coupled with an expanded CFP, the dynamic is different.
Some teams fall apart, and veteran players sometimes check out mentally when the primary goal expires. The allure of a better bowl has less appeal with an expanded Playoff. For Iowa, there are other attainable numbers, such as earning a 10th win for the fourth time in six seasons or pushing Ferentz toward the Big Ten record for career wins (he has 201; Ohio State’s Woody Hayes has 205). But that’s not the motivation, at least right now, for Iowa’s players.
“It’s too early,” Iowa linebacker Jay Higgins said about establishing new goals. “All we’re trying to do is just win one game at a time. That’s the best thing we can do. And when that time comes, when things start separating, we’ll look back and see what we can really accomplish and get our hands into.”
Added left tackle Mason Richman: “The biggest thing that this team, this unit, our offense, we’ve got to keep being able to do is, if we get a loss, you’ve got to respond, get back to neutral. If you get a win, still get back to neutral. Don’t have your head too high. Don’t be looking ahead.”
At Iowa, the rest of the season gets back to their defensive dinner at Pullman last December. It’s about camaraderie and relationships. The season may not conclude in a CFP game, but they still want to play for one another and their coaches. Higgins, one of Iowa’s most vocal and respected leaders of the Ferentz era, said the path forward starts with leadership.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who have no more eligibility after this,” he said. “I’m going to play every game like it’s my last because it literally is my last. We just don’t want to take these moments for granted. We don’t want to take these games for granted. We’ve only got two games left at Kinnick. We’ve only got 12, 13 of these opportunities.
“We don’t have the luxury of assuming that there’s more football after this. I’m all in on Iowa football, playing in the black-and-gold, and I think I’ve got a bunch of guys on the team who are more interested in playing today, playing now, and not really looking forward.”
(Top photo of Kirk Ferentz: Jeffrey Becker / Imagn Images)
