Hawkeye Football Success Story: A Dozen Years of Kirk Ferentz and Staff 3
Kirk Ferentz and Ken O'Keefe survey action on the field.
No doubt about it—you get more hype, more scrutiny, and media exposure playing for Ohio State, Texas, Alabama, or Notre Dame in football then you do playing for the University of Iowa.
That is because Ohio State, Texas, Alabama, and Notre Dame have reputations of being esteemed, premier football programs, fielding the best teams with the best athletes year after year.
The most talented players ready to enter college desire to play for top-flight football programs because it means a chance to excel, playing with or against the very best in the country. It also means a higher likelihood of being drafted by the NFL and signing lucrative pro contracts.
In the past decade of college football, however, the Iowa Hawkeyes finished No. 8 in 2002, 2003, and 2004, No. 20 in 2008, and No. 7 in 2009 in both the Associate Press and USA Today polls.
