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It’s been a roller coaster ride of a season for the Iowa Hawkeyes. While Vegas pegged this as a mediocre year with Iowa’s pre-season win total set at over/under 7.5 wins, the Hawkeye faithful were a bit more optimistic.
You’ll recall, when we ran our pre-season polling of the community here, the consensus was Iowa would finish the year at 9-3. That was right in line with our average staff prediction.
But after two weeks of football, the sentiment for the season had shifted. Iowa’s offense looked inept, the defense didn’t look up to snuff and any aspirations of a 9-3 season seemed out the window with matchups against Indiana, Penn State and Oregon left on the table and a 1-1 record in the early goings.
Things improved modestly with a big win over UMass, but it’s impossible to extrapolate from those pay games. But Iowa’s offense appeared to be on the mend after a 38-point outburst against Rutgers and all of a sudden the needle was at least stabilized instead of pointing down.
Unfortunately, Indiana has been a buzzsaw this season and building momentum against a team destined for the College Football Playoff is a tall task. The Hawkeyes performed well and for the first time all season, we saw a true Phil Parker defense emerge. Sadly, Mark Gronowski went down to injury and the Hawkeyes couldn’t finish the upset, but the season trajectory seemed to at least be salvaged with prospects for more than 7 wins now intact.
Then they found the slump buster in Wisconsin, demolishing the Badgers 37-0 and finding a new identity in the ground game. With Penn State crumbling, the Hawkeyes now find themselves at 5-2 overall and in a world where the potential outcomes seem innumerable.
There is still a world where Iowa finds a way to win out, finishing 10-2 and firmly in the hunt for a playoff spot. It’s a small world and seems highly unlikely. But Penn State being being below .500, winless in the Big Ten and with an interim head coach just over halfway through the season also seemed highly unlikely a few weeks ago.
By the same token, it’s not that difficult to envision the Hawkeyes stumbling in a rivalry game or two against Minnesota and Nebraska, getting pummeled by a top-5 Oregon team and then traveling west to lose at USC, finishing somewhere around .500 for the year. Yes, things seem to be trending in the right direction, but that needle has proven fickle thus far in 2025.
So we want to know what Hawkeye fans are expecting out of the remainder of the season, starting with this week. As of Wednesday morning, Iowa is favored by 9.5 points this weekend against Minnesota. Do you think the Hawkeyes pull out the victory in the battle for Floyd? And how are we feeling about that pre-season projection of 9-3? Will Iowa win more or less than 8.5 games this regular season?
Let us know by voting in this week’s Reacts poll and share your thoughts in the comments below!
