Iowa Hawkeyes HC Kirk Ferentz Reminisces on Epic 2005 Game vs. LSU

An offense in football typically runs about 75 plays per game. That’s why many analysts worth their salt don’t just fixate on the final play of a game. The outcome of a contest is the sum of its parts. Of course, there’s always an exception.

It’s tough to imagine the mind of a football coach with decades of experience picking out a favorite play in their career. All the highs and lows of a game, let alone entire seasons that date back decades before anyone on your current roster was born. Then there are the little things that go unnoticed by everyone except the coaching staff, which they'll hyperfixate on for days or weeks on end to correct.

But it can be wholly understandable why Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz settled on his favorite playcall. Football has its complexities, but the simple answering of a prayer in the waning seconds of a huge bowl game can make for one hell of a memory.

“It was four receivers all-up,” Ferentz told The Athletic, which asked 16 college coaches to recall their all-time favorite play calls. “It was a pretty obvious play call. It was ‘99 All Up.’ The game came down to the last play. We were in a hurry-up mode. Drew Tate was our quarterback and let it rip. They blew the coverage.”

Ferentz is describing the final seconds of Iowa’s 2005 Capital One Bowl victory over the Nick Saban-led LSU Tigers, his final game with the program.

“Drew was a gunslinger. He had no fear. The best part of the story was the kid who caught it, Warren Holloway, that was his first career touchdown catch. He was a great kid, but he couldn’t get lined up for four years, and then, he finally figured it out. Every Iowa fan knows that play. We had no business beating those guys.”

That last statement is part of what makes Iowa football stand out. A bunch of corn-fed, sub-three-star athletes from middle America toppling the top stars of college football has always been a suitable narrative for the Hawkeyes.

That LSU squad featured JaMarcus Russell and Joseph Addai on offense, and Laron Landry and Marcus Spears were stud defenders. And they lost as the clock expired to “The Forgotten Man” who scored one touchdown in his entire collegiate career.