Hawkeye Football Schedule

IOWA CITY — 2024 is shaping up to be a big year for the Iowa Hawkeye football team. It’s the final season under Kirk Ferentz and one that could put the Hawkeyes in the Big Ten championship game for the first time since 2005. It’s also a season that includes several key matchups against the Big Ten East, including Michigan and Penn State.

This summer, the Hawkeyes have been previewing each of those games with our Hawkeye Football Look Ahead series. Today, we wrap things up with a look at Iowa’s schedule and some predictions.

Iowa opens the 2024 season with an early-season Big Ten game against Wisconsin in Week 2. The Badgers were a top-10 team last year and they will come to Kinnick looking for a big win in a game that is sure to be high-scoring.

The second Big Ten game comes the following week, when Iowa hosts Illinois. The Hawkeyes obliterated the Illini 63-0 in Kinnick last year, but Illinois isn’t exactly a pushover this year with Brandon Peters at quarterback. The final Big Ten game of the regular season is a home-and-home with Nebraska. Iowa has won four straight over the Huskers, but they did need a last-second field goal to beat them in the Big Ten Championship Game in 2013.

That’s followed by the annual rivalry against Iowa State. The Cy-Hawk game is usually a defensive battle, and it’s also the annual Homecoming contest for the Hawkeyes. The only problem is that Iowa State has been awful lately and isn’t a program that you want to bet on if you think the Hawkeyes are going to be a national contender.

A nonconference stretch features two more small schools before the season ends with a game against the Iowa State Cyclones. That’s the only game on this portion of the schedule that worries me. Historically, Iowa has had a pretty easy Big Ten schedule to close out the regular season and that’s not the case this year.

All of those Big Ten games have kickoff times and TV assignments set, with the exception of the Oct. 19 game against Northwestern. That game will start at 11 a.m. and is slated for FS1. Those earlier-than-usual starts are a result of feedback from fans that indicated they wanted to be able to go to work before the game, while still having enough time for pregame tailgating. The other four games will have 2:30 or 3 p.m. kickoffs and include the earlier-than-usual Big Ten opener against Rutgers on Sept. 7. All three of the other conference games — Michigan on Oct. 5 and Northwestern on Oct. 26 — are morning kickoffs and will be televised by the Big Ten Network.