Indiana football hits the road for the first time in the 2025 season this Saturday as it heads to Iowa City to take on a 3-1 Iowa team whose only loss came on the road to a ranked Iowa State. This is not
a matchup Curt Cignetti is taking lightly and you probably won’t want to sleep on this one either.
Indiana opened as 6.5 point favorites, and ESPN gives the Hoosiers a 78.4% chance of victory, but Kirk Ferentz has pulled off bigger upsets before. Especially at home in Iowa City, where he has the benefit of one of the biggest and best stadiums in college football to go along with a rabid fanbase that’s looking for a get-right season two years removed from a Big Ten West title.
There’s no reason not to give Cignetti the benefit of the doubt when it comes to preparing his team for the moment, but this is not going to be a walk in the park.
Here are three things to know about the Hawkeyes:
The Passing Game
Kirk Ferentz famously had to fire his son Brian for driving Iowa’s offense so far into the ground that it’s not clear whether they’ve recovered a full two seasons later.
After finishing dead last in yards per game in 2023, Brian’s last season as offensive coordinator, Iowa saw a modest improvement in 2024, beating out four teams in the newly expanded Big Ten to hold on to the 14th spot in the conference. This year, they are back in the bottom three in the Big Ten through four games.
Despite not playing in the fourth quarter in either of Indiana’s last two games, Fernando Mendoza’s 975 passing yards this year is nearly double what the Hawkeyes have managed as a team (551 yards) through the same number of games. Iowa only has ten more passing yards than Northwestern, a team that’s played three games compared to Iowa’s four.
Entering Saturday’s matchup, Iowa has allowed eight sacks and thrown one interception versus just three touchdowns through the air. It’s really not a good scene.
The Offensive Line
As you can imagine, the rest of Iowa’s offense has to be pretty damn good for them to be sitting at 3-1 in spite of the mess that is their passing game. The Hawkeyes have a run heavy offense with multiple threats in the backfield that capitalize on one of the best offensive lines in the country.
Per PFF, Iowa has the best run blocking group in the country, with three other Big Ten schools (Rutgers, Washington, and Northwestern) between them and Indiana. For as impressive as Indiana’s run blocking has been this year, Iowa’s grades almost a full ten points better, according to PFF’s ratings.
The Hawkeyes also have a top 15 pass blocking unit, making them a markedly different opponent than an Illinois team that’s struggled to protect Luke Altmyer all season .
Special Teams
The other thing that has kept Iowa afloat while Ferentz tries to figure out some semblance of a passing game is the special teams, which has given Iowa good field position consistently so far this year. On eight kickoffs and eight punts, Iowa averages 30 yards and 24.8 yards per attempt, respectively.
This will be another big switch up from the Illinois game, when the defense rarely had to play on its own half of the field based on its own dominance and Indiana’s own special teams, which opened the scoring when D’Angelo Ponds blocked a punt then returned it for a touchdown.
Again, Indiana has looked sharp in this area as well, and there’s no reason to think Cignetti wouldn’t have his group ready for this game. Still, it’s a different test for a team that many consider to be unproven four games into the season.
