We’re just one week away from the Iowa Hawkeyes being in the first game week of the 2025 college football season, but the action gets started this weekend as week zero gets underway on Saturday. We did – we made it to football season, folks!
Now, with the season virtually upon us, it’s time to take a few minutes and set expectations. Afterall, these are the Hawkeyes and we are Iowa fans. This is a program that has been range bound between 8 and 10 wins each season (excluding the COVID-shortened season)
since 2016. And yet, many of those complete disappointments, while still others have felt like genuinely good years.
Why?
Simple: expectations.
The test of a good or bad year in the mind of a fan is not objective. There is no base line number of wins which defines success (unless you’re Iowa State, then that number, apparently, is 8, except if you’re talking about a rival, in which case the number is 16). Objectively, ten wins and a shot at the Big Ten Championship and/or College Football Playoff is a good, successful year. But not if you’re Penn State and ranked #2 nationally in the preseason with an expectation for a National Championship run.
Expectations.
This year, expectations for the Hawkeyes are a bit of a question mark. This is a team with 8 new defensive starters, an entirely new quarterback room, loads of questions on the offensive line and an ongoing search for a replacement for All-American running back Kaleb Johnson.
Most years, those comments would mean expectations are low. Add in the schedule with four ranked opponents, including a road trip to a top-25 Iowa State team in week two and home matchups against a pair of top-10 teams, and it would be understandable to have this group of Hawkeyes pegged for regression from the 8-4 record a season ago.
But is that really where expectations are?
Vegas says… sort of. FanDuel Sportsbook has Iowa’s season long win total set at 7.5 total wins for 2025. That’s not a meaningful regression, but also not exactly optimistic. Iowa hasn’t won fewer than 8 games in a season since 2014 (again, excluding the COVID-shortened year in 2020 where the Hawkeyes went 6-2). Falling short this season certainly feels like it might be coming up short of expectations given the excitement surrounding the offense with perhaps the best QB we’ve seen in a Hawkeye uniform since CJ Beathard.
FanDuel is calling for Iowa to finish 7th in the conference, or more accurately, they give Iowa the 7th best odds to win the Big Ten at +3300. The Hawks are +710 to make the College Football Playoff and +15000 to win the National Championship, tied for 28th nationally. All of which to say, Vegas thinks this will be a solid season with perhaps more downside than we’re used to and a relatively limited ceiling.
But Vegas expectations and fan expectations are not the same thing. Just ask the folks west of the Missouri River about expectations for the Huskers in any year the last two decades.
So we’re here, before the season officially kicks off next week, looking to see where expectations truly stand for the fanbase. As in year’s past, we’re asking for your view on Iowa’s overall record this season, but doing it in a way that pins you down a bit on the individual games. The survey below asks you to go game-by-game and choose who you expect to win each of Iowa’s 12 regular season games. The output will give us an expected regular season record for Iowa fans, and also help gauge where the pain will truly be felt when things go awry week to week.
Beyond completing the survey, leave us a comment below to drop your thoughts on expectations for this season. We’ll circle back next week with the compiled data, as well as our staff predictions following the same format.
