Iowa’s non-conference slate for year two under Ben McCollum has a little more juice to it.
The Hawkeyes’ current schedule features 12 games, and the way it’s built gives them a chance at five Quadrant I opponents. It also spreads some of the biggest matchups away from Iowa City, with several of the headline dates landing in other parts of the state.
Here’s the rundown: Lipscomb on Nov. 3, Eastern Illinois on Nov.
6, Virginia Tech in Sioux City on Nov. 10, Creighton in Des Moines on Nov.
15, Xavier on the road on Nov. 20, UMBC on Nov.
24, Prairie View A&M on Nov. 28, Iowa State on Dec. 10 in the Iowa Corn Cy-Hawk Series, Western Illinois on Dec.
13, Bethune-Cookman on Dec. 17, Alabama in Des Moines on Dec. 21, and South Dakota on Dec.
McCollum addressed the schedule format earlier this summer, and he made it clear why some of the bigger games aren’t being played in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
"I mean, I'd love to have them in Carver. But people don't want to do home-and-homes anymore.
It's hard to schedule," he said. "My thought was this: I can go to an empty arena in California, Hawaii, or the Bahamas, which would probably be more fun for me and my family.
Or I could do it in the state of Iowa, the exact empty that we would do somewhere else. Our fans get to come watch it.
They watch it. They like the product.
Then, now we fill Carver for the Big Ten. That was kind of the theory behind it.
We'll see if it works."
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For Iowa, the change is another reminder of how the league is drawing a harder line between college and pro football at a time when roster management is already complicated enough. The rule would only apply inside the Big Ten, so schools in the SEC, Big 12 and ACC would not be bound by it, but it could still shape how teams around Iowa evaluate players weighing a draft move against one last season in college. [Read more 🡒]
Jake Butt Thinks Iowa Could Be Better Than Fans Realize
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The one area Butt left open was the quarterback situation, which is the natural place for skepticism to linger before the season settles in. Still, his overall view was that Iowa looks well-prepared and has the kind of structure that can let it outperform preseason expectations, a familiar theme for a program that has often been more difficult to measure from the outside than the rankings suggest. [Read more 🡒]