We may never see a school year like this again in Iowa City.
Iowa football blew past preseason expectations — the Hawkeyes were predicted to finish fourth in the Big Ten West and Vegas books had their win total at 7.5 — surged to 12-0 in the regular season and appeared in its first Rose Bowl since 1991.
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Kirk Ferentz won Big Ten Coach of the Year and Desmond King was the Jim Thorpe Award winner, given to the nation's best defensive back.
On the hardwood, the Hawkeyes are unbeaten in the Big Ten as of Jan. 27 (7-0) and have their eyes set on a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Senior forward Jarrod Uthoff is making his case for Big Ten — and maybe even National Player of the Year — and Fran McCaffery is making his case for Big Ten Coach of the Year.
So with a few months left in the school year, the Hawkeyes have a chance to put together the best year of football and basketball in program history.
Iowa has never made a Rose Bowl and won the Big Ten regular season basketball crown in the same school year, and that feat is looking more probable by the week.
It has happened in a calendar year (technically) when the basketball team made the national championship game in March 1956 — they lost to undefeated San Francisco led by Bill Russell — and the football team went 9-1 in the fall of 1956 and beat Oregon State in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 1957.
Sixty years later, the Hawkeyes can finally excel at both Kinnick Stadium and Carver-Hawkeye Arena in the same school year.
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How special is this? Let’s break it down:
— It’s been a decade since Iowa had a winning conference record in both football and basketball (not including .500 season). Football was 5-3 in the Big Ten (7-5 overall) in 2005 and the 2005-06 basketball team went 11-5 in conference play (25-9 overall).
This year, Iowa football was a perfect 8-0 in Big Ten play minus the Big Ten Championship Game and the Hawkeyes are 7-0 so far through the conference basketball slate.
— The last time both coaches won Big Ten Coach of the Year was in 1981, but in separate school years. Lute Olson won the award for basketball, leading the Hawkeyes to a fourth-place finish in the Big Ten in the spring, while Hayden Fry won the honor in football in the fall when the Hawkeyes shared the Big Ten title with Ohio State and made its first Rose Bowl since 1959.
It could finally happen in one school year this year. Ferentz already won Big Ten Coach of the Year in football and McCaffery is on pace to do so in basketball.
— The last time a player from both teams won an individual award was 1985, when stud Roy Marble was Big Ten Freshman of the Year in the spring of 1985 and star quarterback Chuck Long won the Maxwell Award (nation’s top player) and the Davey O’Brien Trophy (nation’s best quarterback) in the fall.
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If you strictly look at Big Ten Player of the Year awards, that hasn’t happened since the 1951-52 school year. Bill Reichdart won the Chicago Tribune Silver Football for the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player in 1951, and Chuck Darling won the Silver Basketball in 1952. Those awards essentially served as Big Ten MVP until the conference created its own award in 1985 for basketball, and separate offensive and defensive awards for football in 1990.
In 2015, Desmond King won the Jim Thorpe Award for best defensive back in the nation. Pair that with a possible Big Ten Player of the Year Award for Uthoff in basketball, and this season could be one of the best for individual players in Iowa history.
— It’s been 20 years since Iowa has won a bowl game and won at least one NCAA Tournament game. Iowa won the Sun Bowl against Washington at the end of the 1995 season, and the basketball team, seeded sixth in the West, won its first-round game against George Washington and lost in the second round to Arizona. For good measure, the Hawkeyes made another bowl game after the 1996 season, beating Texas Tech in the Alamo Bowl.
Digging deeper, Iowa hasn’t won a bowl game and made the Sweet 16 since the 1987-88 school year, when it won the Holiday Bowl over Wyoming in 1987 and beat UNLV to make it to the Sweet 16. The year prior, Iowa won a bowl game (Holiday Bowl over SDSU) and made it to the Elite Eight (lost to UNLV).
Iowa still has over half a Big Ten slate to go, but the Hawkeyes are well on their way to putting together one of the best seasons, if not the best season, in Iowa history
