Quick, what Big Ten team had the best overall record for the years 1981-1990? Michigan? Ohio State? Wisconsin? Nope, it was Iowa. The picture of consistency, they had only one losing record in that ten-year period, was nationally ranked eight times, and won at least a share of the conference title three times.
Iowa was not a founding member of the conference. They and Indiana joined in 1898, two years after the creation of the conference. It only took two years for them to win their first conference title, sharing it with Minnesota in 1900, They won their first outright title in 1920. In total, they have won at least a share of the conference title eleven times, four of those outright, making them the sixth most proficient conference winner.
Iowa has the ignoble distinction of being the first team to be expelled by the conference. It happened in 1929, when rumors of player payouts spawned concern among the member schools. The suspected students were expelled, several coaches and athletic department officials were fired, and the conference committee re-admitted them the following year.
Iowa has had only seven head coaches who were there more than five years. All five of those amassed records greater than .500, and those coaches account for eight of their 11 conference titles. Their longest-tenure coach is their current coach, former Marist Red Wolves coach Kirk Ferentz. He surpassed hos predecessor, previous longest-tenured coach Hayden Fry, in 2020. Although Ferenctz has experienced much success, he has not yet surpassed the number of conference titles achieved by his predecessor. Hayden Fry earned three conference titles, the same number of Forest Evashevski in the 1950s and 1960s, while Ferentz has only mustered two (2002 and 2004).
The Hawkeyes play in Kinnick Stadium, named after their only Heisman Trophy winner, Nile Kinnick. Kinnick won the award in 1939. The stadium actually opened in 1929, and wasn't renamed in Kinnick's honor until 1972. Previously it was just called Iowa Stadium.
For the last five years, fans attending games at Kinnick Stadium have engaged in what has been called the greatest humanitarian gesture of any college football game. In February 2017, a new children's hospital was built across the street from Kinnick Stadium. The top 12 floors have windows with an unobstructed view of the stadium's field. To take advantage of the viewpoint, the top floor of the Children's Hospital has the Press Box Cafe, an eatery with tables all along a 120-degree view of the field. In July of that year, fan Krista Young suggested on her Facebook that it might be nice for fans to fave at the children in the hospital. The idea was brought to the athletic department, who decided that it indeed might be a nice gesture. On September 23, 2017, their first night game of the season, just after the conclusion of the first quarter, over 60,000 fans turned towards the hospital, turned on the lights of their cell phones, and waved at the children, their parents, and staff at the hospital. Amazingly, even fans of their opponent, Penn State, joined in. The following game, the band joined in by marching in a wave pattern on the field, and thus the tradition has been born.
Aside from Kinnick, there haven't been too many highly prominent Iowa football players, but they've had a few make tremendous impact in the pros, including Alex Karras, Chuck Long, Paul Krause, Andre Tippet, Ronnie Harmon, and Dallas Clark.
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