Minnesota’s season has already delivered a few sharp turns, and Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz isn’t interested in treating the latest one as anything more than a warning sign.
The unranked Golden Gophers rode back-to-back wins over Washington on the road and Michigan into last week’s matchup with Purdue. They were 4-1 and 2-0 in the Big Ten before the Boilermakers hammered them 41-13. Ferentz sees that kind of volatility as part of the deal in college football - and as something his team can’t ignore with Floyd of Rosedale on the line this weekend at Huntington Bank Stadium.
The Hawkeyes have had their own seesaw run in 2026. They opened with a last-second win against Michigan at the Big House, then fell hard to Ohio State in Kinnick, 31-14. After that, Iowa traveled west on short rest and beat Washington 41-24 on Friday night.
Now comes another rivalry game, and Ferentz wants no part of the idea that any of those previous results automatically carry over.
In his weekly news conference, he pointed to baseball to make the point.
"So the Cubs beat the Tigers, and then the Tigers beat the Reds. Hey, we beat the Tigers, so we'll naturally beat (that team).
And then, you end up losing by 10 runs. That kind of thinking gets you beat," Ferentz explained to the media, according to Tyler Tachman of HawkCentral.
Ferentz said the message to his team is simple: stay locked in on Minnesota and ignore the bigger-picture noise. That matters even more in a week when the Hawkeyes are ranked No. 15 and carrying 5-1 record that could keep them in the College Football Playoff conversation.
Minnesota may be 1-0 in trophy-game mentality every time P.J. Fleck gets his team ready, and Ferentz knows the Gophers won’t be intimidated by Iowa’s ranking. The home team enters as the underdog, but the Hawkeyes know the danger in assuming the matchup will play out the way the standings suggest.
“The moral of the story is you better be ready this Saturday and just worry about this Saturday,” Ferentz said. “I know the whole world wants to worry about what's out there, and we're really starting to fuel that fire now because you've got the playoff shows coming up here sometime in the next four weeks, I'm sure.
So, all the chatter is about what's going to happen in December. The best advice I can give our guys is let's just worry about Saturday."
In Other News...
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Jeremiah Earby, the former Boise State cornerback, is now officially on the Michigan roster and eligible to play right away, adding another experienced piece to the secondary. The future also got a little brighter when three-star receiver Yuto Kawamura-Johnson flipped his commitment from Toledo to Michigan for the 2027 class, a reminder that the staff is still working to build depth even as the focus shifts to the present. [Read more 🡒]
Michigan Fans Just Got A Tough New Bryce Underwood Reality
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Meyer also made it clear this is not a knock on Underwoods ability. He described the young quarterback as talented and engaged, while noting that his role in the offense still has to be sorted out. Meyer added that he stays in regular contact with Kyle Whittingham, a detail that only adds to the sense that this is a developing situation rather than a settled one. [Read more 🡒]