Iowa Football: Can the Hawkeyes win the Big Ten in 2021?

There’s no sugarcoating it: the Big Ten was merely a shell of itself in 2020.

Multiple teams in the league saw their fair share of dark days, including big ones such as Michigan, Penn State, and Wisconsin. The Iowa Hawkeyes, though, refused to let a global pandemic hold them down.

Last season, Kirk Ferentz’s squad racked up six tallies in the win column and did so without interruption following an 0-2 start. Such a feat would mean something for the year to come regardless of which conference you participated in, but Iowa’s being the Big Ten makes it all the more impressive.

However, it appears as if the Hawkeyes are getting an underwhelming amount of offseason hype, at least when compared to that of fellow Big Ten members who defied their own 2020 hardships (i.e. Indiana).

This brings us to the burning question: why are so few people even considering Iowa as a contender?

Iowa football constantly overlooked

They have proven their potential over the past several years, they play in the weaker of the Big Ten’s two divisions, and they even have an upcoming schedule that vastly works in their favor for conference contention.

Their league slate for 2021 has no game that is truly out of reach, with Penn State and Wisconsin being about as tough as it gets. Meanwhile, matchups against Maryland, Purdue, Illinois, and Nebraska are almost guaranteed wins.

In other words, a worst-case scenario would still leave Iowa with a regular-season conference record of around 6-2. And especially in the West division, that could certainly be enough to push them into a conference championship battle against Ohio State.

All the Hawkeyes would essentially need at that point would be a little bit of luck. But as previously established, everything leading up to that moment is entirely in their control, and with obstacles that they are definitely capable of overcoming.