Yes. Then lost a lousy on at NW where NW scored two TD's the final minutes. Then loss to OSU on a 4th and 13 scramble. The story of that year was the tired DL.
What was the biggest Hawkeye football loss in history?
- Thread starter markfromj
- Start date
Yes. Then lost a lousy on at NW where NW scored two TD's the final minutes. Then loss to OSU on a 4th and 13 scramble. The story of that year was the tired DL.
You have been blinded by my username. Go back and re-read what I posted but this time imagine it was posted by someone with a Hawkeye username. You might interpret it a lot differently.
You're probably right, but the computers did love us that year, and who knows, with all that magic going, maybe colt mccoy doesn't get that 1 second back that we needed so bad just to get into the BCS.
I don't know if this is the biggest but the toughest for me was 2011 @ ISU in 3 overtimes. I had to listen to Clone fans brag about that for 365 days, no exaggeration.
Two games that I can remember long ago was an 83-21 loss to Ohio State in 1950 and a 55-0 loss to USC in 1974. The other two games that were sickening to me were the losses to Washington and UCLA in the Rose Bowl.
I vote for last years NE game. We were clubbing little red at HOME and some how we blow the lead and lose to them. They then hours later fire their coach. Thats when I realized we have sank to the bottom and except mediocrity at best. Thats why it's my worse loss it's not only a loss it showed me where the program and fans expectations are.
We didn't know it after the game, but if we win against ISU, we play for the National Championship.
Banks probably wins the Heisman as well.
I posted it before, but wanted to say it again: Completely disagree. We don't lose to ISU and we don't win the rest of the games, it was the stoking of the fire. And losing to ISU wasn't what separated the Heisman, Palmer was winning that all the way. (Unless in winning against ISU he ran for 8 TDs or something).
Hey! That looks familiar.
You may have the worst taste in cars ever known to mankind. And I'm 100% serious.
The Bobby Olive game. Hearbreaker. Didn't Merton Hanks have a sure pick at the end of the first half do off his cheast and into the arms of some guy for an easy score? I was at that one. Ugh.
1991 Michigan at home was killer looking back at it now. That was the only loss of the season. Win that and its another Rose Bowl season. At the time, it didn't seem that crucial b/c it was early.
2009 Northwestern probably takes the cake for me. The way we lost, up two TD's and then Stanzi going out with the broken leg. That naked boot in your own endzone toward Wooten up 14-0 in the 2nd quarter is one of the dumbest play calls I can remember in a long time. It ranks right up their with the Seattle pass play (instead of giving it to Lynch) from the last Super Bowl.
1990 against OSU was awful. That was the first ever game I went to in Kinnick Stadium. Have never heard a place go from that loud to that quiet since. Walking out of the stadium was like a funeral processional. No one said a thing.
2009 Northwestern probably takes the cake for me. The way we lost, up two TD's and then Stanzi going out with the broken leg. That naked boot in your own endzone toward Wooten up 14-0 in the 2nd quarter is one of the dumbest play calls I can remember in a long time. It ranks right up their with the Seattle pass play (instead of giving it to Lynch) from the last Super Bowl.
1990 against OSU was awful. That was the first ever game I went to in Kinnick Stadium. Have never heard a place go from that loud to that quiet since. Walking out of the stadium was like a funeral processional. No one said a thing.
Still will never know what Hayden was thinking with that fake punt call. Fourth and 9 I think. At the 10:00 minute mark. Iowa had three TD's and 18 points. Skillett was not great that year...
KF always lays a turd for one game regardless of how good we are. I have heard that argument and who knows....you can speculate till the cow's come home. I would like to have known if they could keep it together.
Not sure I agree. I've seen people repeat that time after time but not sure it's fact. That 2002 team may have continued to improve anyway... Beating ISU wouldn't force us to lose against PSU or Purdue nor did what was a 5th straight loss to ISU "stoke the fire" IMO..
Fumbles seemed to be a problem early that year, and it sure was what got us beaten against ISU. Fred Russell fumbled at the goal line @PSU, where a TD would have totally put that game away, but let them hang around and make a comeback. I believe KF would have gotten the fumbling problem corrected regardless of whether Iowa lost to ISU or not. That team had the talent to be great, and they were. They just fumbled away the ISU game, literally.
Purdue - Joe Tiller's teams always gave us fits. Just was a bad match up. PSU & PU were the only real close calls I seem to remember that year. Purdue also nearly knocked off OSU last day of the season, except for a lucky late TD pass to save OSU's bacon, if you recall.
Last edited:
As for my vote - I think I'll go with 1985 @OSU. Iowa was #1, and lost at OSU pretty far into the season. No bigger stage than that, IMO, with more on the line. The 1986 Rose Bowl loss would've been bigger IMO if Iowa had still been #1.
The 2009 loss to NW was pretty crushing, too. Iowa still lost @OSU, regardless, so I'll say 1985 OSU since that was the lone loss and knocked us out of the #1 spot. We can argue the 2009 outcome if Stanzi had been healthy and able to play those two games, though.
The 2009 loss to NW was pretty crushing, too. Iowa still lost @OSU, regardless, so I'll say 1985 OSU since that was the lone loss and knocked us out of the #1 spot. We can argue the 2009 outcome if Stanzi had been healthy and able to play those two games, though.
There is only one answer to this question and its 2010 Wisconsin. The program has never been the same since that dumpster fire. All those breaks we got in the early Ferentz years seemed to disappear since that game. He's always been a poor game manager, but something would always happen to bail him out or make him look like a genius. No more....
Well of course it isn't a fact.
That season was awesome, even with the loss. My NW loss was much more devastating.
I thought your 2003 team was better, but close games fell the wrong way that year. The 2002 team was poor at defending the pass. That deficiency wasn't exposed very often during the season. The 2003 team was a better defensive team in my opinion.
That is the game early in the season where Dick Vermeil said afterwards "Iowa won't lose another game this year"...and he was right.
Too bad that f0$U game did not have the same officiating crew that worked the Mich (#1 vs#2) game. Iowa would (maybe) have gotten the same benefits that Michigan got with the crowd noise.
1986 Rose Bowl sticks in my caw too. But not as bad now as it did for years. Reflection has shined (I know it's "shone" but who talks that way?) light upon how overconfident we fans were (not the team) and just how good and tactful UCLA was. I'll elaborate just a bit on the UCLA thing. That UCLA team ended up with five 1st-team PAC-10 players, victories over defending national champs BYU and conference powerhouses Arizona and ASU, a tie with SEC champ Tennessee--and ended up with the #2 ranked defense in the nation (behind Oklahoma, which finished #1 in the polls). A very worthy opponent indeed, whose Head Coach (Terry Donahue) was a MASTER at teaching ball-stripping maneuvers--and strip they did. Iowa lost 4 of 4 fumbles--and the rest is history. Ironically, there was a Hawkeye linebacker coach watching closely that day. Barry Alvarez, when not screaming bloody murder, was taking notes. And nine years later, Alvarez used the very same stripping techniques against Donahue in the 1995 Rose Bowl, where despite outgaining Wisconsin 2-1, UCLA lost FIVE of FIVE fumbles and the game.
My thoughts, and a few others that have discussed this, if we win that game against the clowns, we probably stumble somewhere else through the year. We are talking about the Hawkeyes after all. We typically win one or two that we shouldn't and lose one or two that we shouldn't.
