48 Fun Facts About Iowa Hawkeyes Football

In which town do the Hawkeyes play their home games?

Kinnick Stadium holds 69,250, the 25th-largest college football venue in the country.

Kinnick Stadium is named after the school's only winner of which award?

Heisman Trophy. Accepting it in 1939, Nile Kinnick thanked God that his battles were on football fields and not on the battlefields of Europe.

Nile Kinnick, Iowa's stadium namesake, died in 1943 serving as what?

Navy pilot. He had turned down pro football for law school before enlisting, and at 24 he ditched his fighter in the sea off Venezuela on a training flight; the stadium took his name in 1972.

Which coach took over Iowa in 1999 and went on to become the winningest football coach in Big Ten history?

Kirk Ferentz. His first Iowa team went 1–10 and lost every conference game in 1999; three years later the Hawkeyes went unbeaten in the league.

Iowa's surprise 1939 team, led by Nile Kinnick, earned which nickname?

The Ironmen. Iowa had won only two games in the previous two years; new coach Eddie Anderson had so little depth that his starters rarely left the field, and they went 6–1–1.

Howard Jones won 20 straight games at Iowa in the early 1920s, then built a dynasty at which school?

USC. Jones left Iowa after 1923, spent a year at Duke, then won every Rose Bowl his Trojans played, while the Hawkeyes sank to the bottom of the league for most of the 1930s.

What did the Big Ten do to Iowa in 1929 over suspected payments to athletes?

Voted it out of the league. The conference took Iowa back in February 1930, after the school had disqualified a group of its players.

Calvin Jones became the first Hawkeye, and first African-American, to win which award in 1955?

Outland Trophy. The guard had committed to his home-state university before following two high-school friends to Iowa; a year after winning it he died in a plane crash in Canada, aged 23.

Which team did Iowa rout 38–12 in the 1959 Rose Bowl?

California. Halfback Bob Jeter was the game's outstanding player, and the rout persuaded the Football Writers Association to name Iowa its national champion for the 1958 season.

Which team handed Iowa its only loss of 1960 and was sent to the Rose Bowl ahead of the co-champion Hawkeyes?

Minnesota. The Gophers won 27–10 when Iowa was the top-ranked team in the country, and because the Big Ten then let its teams play in only one bowl, the Hawkeyes stayed home with a top-three ranking.

Which former Iowa tight end, a fifth-round pick in 2017, set an NFL receiving record for his position a year later?

George Kittle. He caught only 48 passes in his whole Iowa career, then gained 1,377 yards for the 49ers in 2018, taking the tight-end record from Travis Kelce less than an hour after Kelce had set it.

Which Hall of Fame coach did Iowa hire after the 1978 season to revive its football program?

Hayden Fry. He vowed to resign if Iowa missed a bowl for four more years; in his third season the Hawkeyes shared the Big Ten title and reached the Rose Bowl, their first bowl in 23 years.

What color is the visitors' locker room at Iowa's Kinnick Stadium famously painted?

Pink. The coach who ordered it had a psychology degree and reasoned that the colour, sometimes used in jails to calm inmates, would put opponents in a passive mood.

Iowa's uniforms were modelled, with permission, on which NFL team's?

Pittsburgh Steelers. They were the best team in pro football and happened to share Iowa's colours, so a new coach inheriting years of losing dressed his players like winners.

What is the name of the logo on Iowa's football helmets, first drawn in 1979?

Tiger Hawk. A commercial artist, Bill Colbert, drew it for a coach who wanted a distinctive helmet decal, and the team has since taken it off its helmets to mark moments of mourning.

What do the letters on Iowa's 'ANF' helmet sticker stand for?

America Needs Farmers. The sticker first appeared late in the 1985 season as a farm crisis swept Iowa; NCAA limits on decals took it off in 1992, and it returned for good in 2009.

Iowa's 1985 team spent five weeks of the season ranked where in the AP poll?

No. 1. The stay at the top included a last-play win over the second-ranked team in the country, and Iowa went on to win the Big Ten title and play in the Rose Bowl.

Which Iowa quarterback led the final drive that beat the No. 2 team in the country 12–10 in 1985?

Chuck Long. He started from his own 22 with 5:27 left, and Rob Houghtlin's kick won it as time ran out; Long was only there because two plays in a bowl game as a freshman had not cost him a year of eligibility.

Which seventh-ranked team did Iowa upset 10–7 in 1981, a year after losing to it 57–0?

Nebraska. Punter Reggie Roby kept the Huskers pinned back with kicks averaging over 50 yards, and the upset launched a season that ended in Iowa's first bowl game in 23 years.

Whose last game before joining the Miami Dolphins was Iowa's last-play win in the 2005 Capital One Bowl?

Nick Saban. The 56-yard catch that beat his defending national champions was senior Warren Holloway's first and only college touchdown.

Which Iowa quarterback threw 'The Catch', the last-play pass that won the 2005 Capital One Bowl?

Drew Tate. Iowa had led all day until its opponent went ahead with 46 seconds left; with the clock running out, the sophomore threw from his own 44 on what became the final play.

Which unbeaten, third-ranked team lost 24–23 at Iowa in 2008 on a field goal with one second left?

Penn State. Safety Tyler Sash's late interception started the winning drive and Daniel Murray's 31-yard kick finished it, the Nittany Lions' only regular-season loss and the end of their national title hopes.

Iowa's first BCS bowl win came in the 2010 Orange Bowl against which team?

Georgia Tech. Iowa's defence held an option attack that ran for over 300 yards a game to a single offensive touchdown, and Brandon Wegher's late 32-yard run sealed a 24–14 win.

Which Australian punter became a fan favourite at Iowa and won the 2023 Ray Guy Award?

Tory Taylor. The Melbourne native was called on so often in 2023 that he punted for 4,479 yards, breaking an NCAA single-season record that had stood for 85 years.

Which Big Ten power did Iowa rout 55–24 at Kinnick Stadium in 2017?

Ohio State. Amani Hooker returned an interception for a touchdown on the game's first play, and the Buckeyes' quarterback was picked off three more times in their first league defeat of the season.

Iowa plays a border rival each year for Floyd of Rosedale, a bronze statue of what animal?

A pig. Tempers ran high after the rival's rough handling of Iowa star Ozzie Simmons in 1934, so before the rematch its governor bet a prize hog on the result; Floyd of Rosedale was later cast in bronze.

Iowa and Iowa State play annually for which prize?

Cy-Hawk Trophy. The rivals stopped meeting after 1934, and when they agreed to play again in 1977 a Des Moines athletic club donated the trophy to mark the occasion.

Iowa has played for the Heroes Trophy on which day each year since 2011?

The Friday after Thanksgiving. Iowa's opponent had played a rival on that date since 1990, first Oklahoma and then Colorado; when it joined the Big Ten in 2011, Iowa inherited the slot.

Which prize have Iowa and Wisconsin played for since 2004?

Heartland Trophy. The brass bull was first handed over in 2004, when Iowa's 30–7 win also clinched a share of the Big Ten title, though the two teams had been meeting since 1894.

Which Big Ten rival went 15 years without playing Iowa after Hawkeye fans pelted its players with apples in 1952?

Illinois. The Illini had won 33–13 in a game marred by penalties and a punch, and the series was then shelved for a cooling-off period that kept the two apart until 1967.

What is the name of Iowa's mascot?

Herky the Hawk. He began as a cartoon in 1948, a statewide contest produced the name 'Hercules the Hawk', soon shortened, and he first appeared in costume at a football game in 1959.

Hawkeye, the nickname Iowans took up in the 1830s, was already the hero's name in which 1826 novel?

The Last of the Mohicans. James Fenimore Cooper's frontiersman bore the name; the Iowa editor who pushed 'Hawk-eyes' in 1838 said it honoured the Sauk leader Black Hawk, and the novel's fame is thought to have helped it stick.

Which AC/DC song plays as the Hawkeyes leave the tunnel before home games?

Back in Black. The players walk out to it, then link hands and jog onto the field together to Metallica's 'Enter Sandman', an entrance called The Swarm that began as a show of solidarity.

What is the English title of the polka the band plays after Iowa victories?

In Heaven There Is No Beer. The band calls its version the Hawkeye Victory Polka and trades verses with the crowd, playing one and singing the next.

At the end of the first quarter, Iowa fans turn and wave to whom?

Patients at the children's hospital. A fan from the small town of Anita proposed a 'wave to the kids' on a Facebook fan page in 2017, after the hospital opened a wing overlooking the field.

Which company gave Iowa its Wide World of Sports Spirit Award in 2017 for the Kinnick Wave?

Disney. Its Spirit Award goes each year to college football's most inspirational person or team; in 2017 it went to a stadium tradition that was only a few months old.

Which Hawkeye defensive back of the early 1980s later coached Oklahoma to the 2000 national title?

Bob Stoops. He began coaching as an Iowa graduate assistant, never had a losing season in 18 years at Oklahoma, then retired in June 2017 and handed the job to Lincoln Riley.

Which SEC team did the 1958 polls crown over Iowa?

LSU. The Tigers finished 11–0, but the polls closed before the bowls; Iowa's Rose Bowl rout then persuaded the Football Writers Association to give its trophy to the Hawkeyes instead.

Which team beat Iowa 45–16 in the 2016 Rose Bowl after the Hawkeyes' 12–0 regular season?

Stanford. Christian McCaffrey turned a short pass into a 75-yard touchdown on the first play from scrimmage and finished with a Rose Bowl record 368 all-purpose yards.

Which 2020 postseason game did Iowa accept a bid to, only for a COVID outbreak to cancel it?

Music City Bowl. Missouri's outbreak forced the cancellation three days before kickoff, ending an Iowa season that had turned two opening losses by a combined five points into six straight wins.

Which team beat Iowa 42–3 and 26–0 in the 2021 and 2023 Big Ten Championship Games?

Michigan. Iowa won its division three times, in 2015, 2021 and 2023, and lost the title game each time, the last two without scoring a touchdown.

Which Iowa defensive coordinator won the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant in 2023?

Phil Parker. His 2023 defence carried an offence so poor that its coordinator was told in mid-season he would not be back, and Iowa still reached the Big Ten title game.

The playing field at Kinnick Stadium was named in 2021 for which Hawkeye tackle of 1918–21, later a Chicago judge?

Duke Slater. A star of Iowa's unbeaten 1921 team, he played pro football for a decade while going back each off-season to earn a law degree, then sat as a judge in Chicago.

Which hard-hitting Iowa safety was named the NFL's Defensive Player of the Year with the 2007 Colts?

Bob Sanders. Colts coach Tony Dungy called him 'the Eraser' for wiping out his teammates' mistakes, and the award came a year after he helped Indianapolis win the Super Bowl.

Which coach won three Big Ten titles and two Rose Bowls at Iowa, then became its athletic director?

Forest Evashevski. He walked away from coaching at 42, straight after his third league title, and when he died in 2009 the Hawkeyes wore a helmet sticker with his nickname, EVY.

Iowa's 'FFF' helmet sticker honoured high school coach Ed Thomas and stands for what?

Faith, Family, Football. It was the order of priorities Thomas preached at Aplington-Parkersburg High School, where he coached four future NFL players before he was shot dead in his own weight room in 2009.

In Iowa's famous 1953 tie at Notre Dame, what did Irish tackle Frank Varrichione do twice to stop the clock?

Faked injuries. Notre Dame scored after each stoppage to escape with a 14–14 tie, earned the nickname 'Fainting Irish', and saw the rules on injury stoppages rewritten the following year.

Which Iowa running back won the 2008 Doak Walker Award after rushing for 1,850 yards?

Shonn Greene. He had sat out all of 2007 repairing his grades at a community college, then came back and ran for at least 100 yards in every game.