The past 25 years of college football have seen incredible growth in the sport as we’ve seen programs rise and fall. It’s those consistent name-brand teams that capture the masses’ attention, and the Iowa Hawkeyes are one of the few programs that can put themselves in such an elite category.
The Athletic’s top 25 programs of the past 25 years featured the Hawkeyes at No. 23. That ranking marks Iowa as the seventh-best Big Ten school in that span, though it’s worth noting that USC and Oregon’s inclusion only includes one season of Big Ten play.
While Iowa hasn’t had the national success of most of the 22 teams ranked ahead of them, the program’s consistency under head coach Kirk Ferentz is what earned them the nod. After all, Ferentz is the only coach to stay with his team for the entirety of the time period covered in these rankings. In that time, Iowa won 64% of its games while only suffering two losing seasons and three without bowl invitations.
A Respectable 25 Years, But Can Iowa Do More Than Just Hang Around?
Iowa also spent 36.3% of weeks ranked in the top 25, ranking 27th among FBS programs, and 9% of weeks ranked in the top 10, ranking 34th. Again, Iowa hasn’t had the national accolades to lean on, but they have consistently proven to be a formidable measuring stick for their opponents.
Nonetheless, the ranking must leave a bittersweet taste in the mouths of the Hawkeye faithful. Being respected is all well and good, but it doesn’t win championships. Iowa was the only team featured in the list that failed to win a conference or national championship, other than Notre Dame, which, of course, doesn’t play in a conference and did at least reach the national championship game twice.
The more jokes are made about Iowa’s punting prowess and lack of offensive production, the less respectable the program becomes. At the current rate, Iowa will be hard-pressed to find itself in such a spot in the next 25 years. Thankfully, there’s plenty of time to forge a destiny that doesn’t settle on such a bleak result.
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