Iowa is walking into one of the biggest stages it has seen in years, and the Hawkeyes aren’t pretending that should feel ordinary.
Ohio State is coming to Kinnick Stadium this Saturday for a ranked Big Ten matchup, and everything around it is built for a major scene. ESPN College GameDay will be there.
CBS has the game in its primetime mid-afternoon window. The setting alone makes it clear this is not just another Saturday for Iowa.
Even with all that noise around the game, the Hawkeyes aren’t trying to act above the nerves that come with it. Kirk Ferentz said he feels them, too, though not in the moment most people might expect.
"I was nervous five weeks ago, or whenever it was, the first game. I was nervous in July, just about the whole season, and about getting started and all that kind of stuff.
"If you get over that, if I get over that, it's probably time to move on and do something else. I'm a little better now, quite frankly, because I know no matter what happens, unless something really devastating happens, we'll go back to work Sunday," Kirk Ferentz said about handling nerves.
For Iowa, the better question isn’t whether nerves are a problem. It’s what those nerves mean.
The Hawkeyes have earned their way into this spot by beating Michigan and opening the season 4-0. They’re also a sizable underdog, which changes the temperature of the game in their favor.
Iowa can swing freely here, take chances, and play without the weight of a season being defined by one result. Even a loss would leave the Hawkeyes at 4-1 and still in position to keep chasing their goals.
But there’s another layer to the tension. Iowa’s nerves aren’t about fear of the moment.
They’re about the size of the moment itself. That matters.
It says the game means something. It says Ferentz feels it.
It says the team feels it.
That kind of edge can be useful if it gets channeled the right way. Nerves can drain a team, or they can sharpen it. For Iowa, this is the chance to turn that feeling into something useful and attack the opportunity in front of it.
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For Iowa, this is about more than surviving the game plan. If those young defensive backs hold up against the Buckeyes, it gives the Hawkeyes a better chance to keep the field manageable for the rest of the defense and stay in position on the offensive side of the ball. If they struggle, the pressure on Iowas whole operation rises quickly, which is why this stage feels bigger than a single Saturday in Columbus. [Read more 🡒]