With the 2019 college footballs season complete, we look back on how the Big Ten did in bowl games.
As we go through all the bowls, in no particular order, we will focus on two main things:
1. How did the bowl performance end the 2019 season? Was it a fitting end or a poor performance, etc.
2. What impact, if any, will it have on the 2020 season.
Now that we’ve gone through all four Big Ten losses (not including the CFP), let’s move on to the wins.
2019 Holiday Bowl: Iowa vs USC
The matchup
No one quite knew what to expect from this matchup, because no on quite knew what to expect from USC at all this year. Kedon Slovis was a revelation in Pac 12 play, looking like the next in a long line of great USC quarterbacks. USC had a middling season (relatively), but there’s clearly massive potential.
Iowa, meanwhile, can’t ever shake its Ferentz-ball stereotype. The Hawkeyes are viewed as a slow, run-first team that relies on huge linemen to cover for a lack of speed at skill positions. Sure, players like Josey Jewell or or Kevin King come through, but they’re seen as individual anomalies, not fundamental parts of the program. It also doesn’t help that in Iowa’s last real high-profile bowl game, the Hawkeyes were embarrassed by Stanford in the Rose Bowl. The fact that that bowl loss was sandwiched between two other embarrassing bowl losses to SEC schools just exacerbated the issue.
What went right
Well, Iowa shed just about every Iowa stereotype in this game. Not only did the Hawkeyes not get blown out against a fast and athletic team, but they dominated the game entirely. The Iowa offense was unstoppable in the first half, scoring touchdowns on all four drives. The defense was stout, and there’s no shame in giving up some good plays and drives to an offense as talented as USC’s. It’s almost impossible to guard Amon-Ra St. Brown, but Iowa did a pretty solid job of completely shutting down the USC run game. With the Trojan offense entirely one-dimensional, Iowa got plenty of stops–even if the Slovis to St. Brown connection was there all game.
What went wrong
The Hawkeyes did go three-and-out three times in the second half, but they were clearly controlling the game by then. The worst thing that Iowa did–and this is a huge sin for a Ferentz-coached team–was that the Hawkeyes weren’t prepared for a USC onside kick early in the game. You have to be ready for those, though it didn’t hurt much in this one.
Next… 2019 wrap-up and 2020 impact
2019 wrap-up
I don’t know if Iowa particularly needed this win, but a ten-win season always seems significantly better than a nine-win one. Similarly, Iowa would have ended the year ranked regardless, but finishing in the Top 15 with two ranked wins just looks so much better than barely staying in the Top 25 with only one. Also, none of Iowa’s regular-season wins over Power 5 teams was particularly impressive. Ignoring a 20-point win over Northwestern and a 30-point over Rutgers, Iowa couldn’t win a single P5 game by double digits. A blowout win over a solid Pac 12 team changes every perception about this season. In the span of one blowout bowl win, Iowa went from being just another solid P5 team to being a legitimate good team in 2019.
2020 Impact
It’s hard to say what this means for Iowa in 2020. The Hawkeyes are never viewed as a program that “reloads.” Iowa rebuilds when it has to, and it looks like a rebuild is coming. Quarterback Nate Stanley is finally moving on, and the Hawkeyes are losing a lot of talent in the trenches. On top of that, Iowa gets Ohio State and Penn State in cross-divisional play–with both games on the road, in consecutive weeks. Ouch.
Expecting anything better than 8-4 from Iowa in 2020 might be a stretch. With a Top 15 season this year and the memory of the USC victory in voters’ minds, though, 8-4 in 2020 might be enough for another ranked season for Iowa yet again. That will tell us just how much benefit of the doubt the Hawkeyes built up with this victory.
