Wine Online: Enjoy it, Hawk Fans!

To put Iowa’s 2004 football season in perspective, we need to review a little Hawkeye history.

In capturing a second Big Ten championship in three years, Kirk Ferentz becomes the fourth Iowa coach to win multiple conference titles. He moves alongside Howard Jones, Forest Evashevski and Hayden Fry – coaching giants of the 20th century, not just at Iowa, but in all of college football.

Jones had back-to-back Big Ten crowns in 1921 and 1922. Both teams had perfect records, and one or both might have been national champions had there been national rankings in those days. Both teams also had huge non-conference victories. Iowa ended Notre Dame’s 20-game winning streak in 1921, and the next year won at Yale, then a college football power.

Evashevski won three Big Ten championships over a five-year period. Iowa captured outright titles in 1956 and 1958 and was a co-champ in 1960. The 1956 team was the school’s first to earn a post-season berth, and trounced Oregon State in the Rose Bowl. The Football Writers of America awarded a national championship to the1958 Hawkeyes, who defeated California in the Rose Bowl.

Fry also had three Big Ten titles, winning an outright crown in 1985 and co-championships in 1981 and 1990. All three teams went to the Rose Bowl and failed to win there, but 11 other teams gained bowl bids under Fry, and six were winners. Perhaps Fry’s greatest achievement was sustaining success in an Iowa football program that had gone 19 years without a winning record.

Jones, Evashevski and Fry are all enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame. Will Ferentz be there someday? Too early to tell, but he’s certainly headed in the right direction.

Kirk’s Hawkeyes are on their way to a third consecutive January bowl game and their fourth straight post-season appearance. Iowa seniors will be gunning for their 38th victory when they play at the Capital One Bowl in Orlando.

Iowa’s record in the last three years is 30-7, including a 20-4 mark in the Big Ten. The Hawkeyes have an 18-game winning streak at Kinnick Stadium, and are likely to break the school record of 20, set by Jones’ teams. The first four opponents at home next year are Ball State, Northern Iowa, Illinois and Indiana. Iowa will surely be a solid favorite against them all.

An improbable seven-game winning streak produced an unexpected Big Ten championship this season. The unlikely title is similar to those earned by the Iowa teams of 1956, 1981 and 1990. Those clubs were also surprise champs, and success is always sweetest when least anticipated.

The 2004 Hawkeyes looked like anything but Big Ten contenders going into October. They had a 2-2 record, an embarrassing 37-point loss at Arizona State and running backs going down like dominoes.

But with exceptional play from a rookie quarterback and great leadership from his seniors, Ferentz steadied the ship and the Hawkeyes haven’t lost since September. The tenacity of the team was demonstrated in the final two games, when it squeezed out a two-point victory at the Metrodome, where Minnesota seldom loses, then beat Wisconsin to claim a share of the Big Ten title.

The Hawkeyes did it all without a running game. Five tailbacks went down with injuries, four requiring season-ending knee surgery. Iowa’s rushing offense was dead last in the Big Ten but its defense against the rush ranked first, making a strong case that defense trumps offense.

Not surprisingly Ferentz is once again the Big Ten Coach of the Year, an honor he won two years ago. He also has a well-deserved new contract that puts him at Iowa for at least eight more years, and if the Hawkeyes sustain success over that period, the Hawkeyes will have another Hall of Fame football coach.

In the meantime Ferentz, his coaches and his players have made this another great holiday season for Hawkeye fans. Enjoy!