I suppose it’s possible I simply live in an insular bubble, but the vast majority of Hawkeye fans I interact with on a regular basis have a healthy flavor of skepticism.
No, that’s not true. Put more precisely, almost every Hawkeye fan I interact with holds skepticism deep in their bones but a very large portion have more than a healthy flavor of it – some might call it unhealthy.
I, myself, likely fall into this category. My fandom began as a kid in the 90’s, but I was raised in a household that wasn’t generations of Hawkeye fans. My dad was from Illinois and grew up an Illini fan, though not a big one. We watched the Hawkeyes but we also watched Iowa State. I have a sister who went their, met her future husband and is raising future Cyclones.
But my really formative sports years came at the turn of the millennium when we had a flashy new basketball coach and football was turning the page from the guy I had always seen but didn’t fully understand why everyone love him to a guy who nobody had ever seen but seemed to be building something special. Those special years in the early aughts, however, are what really formed my personality as an Iowa fan. The Hawkeye always seemed to come up just short of being truly elite and as a lifelong Cardinals fan, I felt like I was morphing into a Cubs fans, always looking forward to next year when we would get over the hump.
Rinse, repeat.
Two decades and four kids later, the pessimism is baked into my DNA and I watch every week as my sons have yet to learn the lessons my younger days taught me. They have complete, unfettered optimism about everything Iowa. The basketball team was going to win the NCAA Championship in year one under Ben McCollum. They got close enough and now there’s no doubt it will happen this year.
On the gridiron, the Hawkeyes simply don’t lose to any of their rivals, like ever, and they’re going to make the playoffs. They just are. Because that’s the team they like and that team is good so why wouldn’t they win this weekend and every weekend from now through early December?
That optimism, somehow, seems to be seeping into the rest of the fanbase. When we polled the community this week whether Iowa would win on the road at Minnesota, all but one respondent said yes.
It’s not just here on SB Nation. The line for this game opened at Iowa -3.5 on some books. It was -4.5 over on FanDuel Sportsbook. That number has since climbed to Iowa -7.5 as of Friday, indicating the betting public has been moving on the Hawkeyes all week as well.
As I watch that optimism build and I stare at the schedule in front of the Hawkeyes, it’s hard not to think back to a pair of seasons which seem to have striking parallels to the one we’re in the midst of. Ones that keep me toeing the line of pessimism.
The peak of my Hawkeye fandom came as a senior at the University of Iowa in 2009. Like so many others, I was up late on Friday night with the beer band and up earlier on Saturday mornings to lubricate the vocal cords. I joined former BHGPer Jerry as we rushed to get to the front row of the student section when the gates opened. We didn’t sit or shut up until the game was won.
And the game was always won. Somehow, some way, the Hawkeyes always came out on top. First it was the two blocked FGs to survive against UNI. Then it was Adrian Clayborn’s blocked, scooped up, Hawkeye touchdown in the white out at #5 Penn State. Then 7 got 6. Then it was trick or treat Iowa City.
It was always something. There was no mountain the Hawkeyes couldn’t climb and no valley they couldn’t dig out of. I let the pessimism fade and tried to enjoy the ride.
Then Ricky Stanzi went on a naked bootleg against Northwestern and the magic disappeared. We were right back to the pessimism.
That season was still magical and we will always have “if you don’t love it, leave it.” But the injury robbed us of knowing just how great that season could have been.
Fast forward six years and the magic was back. We had the walk-off 57 yard FG against Pitt. Then it was the most beautiful, ugly game this side of 6-4 up in Madison. And then, around this time of year, the Red Sea parted and you could see the path. Akrum Wadley went nuts as the Hawks beat a top-20 Northwestern team on the road and suddenly at 7-0, Iowa was marching into the top-10 nationally without a ranked team left on the schedule.
As with this year, the path was as clear as day. Just keep winning and you’re a playoff team. But without any marquee wins (and at that time with only four teams getting in) any loss would sink those playoff dreams.
The absolute best I have ever felt as an Iowa fan came on December 5th, 2015. On the first play of the 4th quarter, CJ Beathard hit Tevaun Smith for an 85 yard TD strike and Lucas Oil Stadium was deafening as the Hawkeyes took a 13-9 lead in the Big Ten title game. This was it. They were unbeaten and they had just landed the knockout punch on the #5 Spartans. They were headed to the CFP. Optimism.
Five minutes and eight seconds of game time later, Iowa punted the ball away to the Spartans. They proceeded to march 82 soul crushing yards over 22 plays and 9:04 of game clock. I sat beside my dad staring straight down the goal line as LJ Scott ripped my heart out. We sat in silence for an hour and a half driving to the only hotel room we had been able to book earlier that week. In Champaign, Illinois.
Optimism died.
Now, once again, Iowa is staring down a path that is clearly there for them. Win and you’re in. Every week is a Playoff play-in game. Lose and the resume doesn’t hold up. The fanbase has bought it. Vegas is starting to get in line.
Me? I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the naked bootleg, the soul crushing drive, something to go wrong.