Iowa 2025 Football Schedule: Best & Worst Scenarios, Season Prediction

Who does Iowa miss from the Big Ten schedule?

Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, UCLA, Wisconsin

You’d like to miss Oregon and Penn State this season if you could, and you don’t want to take the chance that Indiana is as strong as last year’s version, but they’re on the schedule. Missing Ohio State is an obvious positive, and not having to play Michigan matters.

Maryland, Northwestern, Purdue, UCLA, and Wisconsin aren’t on the slate - none of those five went bowling last year. On the positive side, not playing Illinois is nice.

Iowa football schedule, the good and the bad

The Good: There’s a terrific midseason stretch of games without leaving home. Throw in the that the first three road games are Iowa State - from the proximity aspect, not the toughness of the game - Rutgers, and Washington, that’s not bad.

The other two road games? USC and Nebraska. With all due respect to the rest of the Big Ten, this is about as easy an away stretch as it gets - no traveling to Columbus, Ann Arbor, Happy Valley, or Eugene.

The Bad: There’s not much other than having to play Oregon and Penn State, but both of those games are at home.

Yes, there is that stretch of over a month from mid-October to mid-November without a road game, and there are only two trips outside of Iowa until November 15th, but the home slate is a bear.

USC and Nebraska are both winnable, but those two road games come in the last three weeks of the season, and that’s after dealing with Oregon.

Iowa Football Schedule: Best and worst case scenarios

Best Case Scenario: Beat Iowa State, and then take care of Iowa City.

Again, all of the Big Ten road games are winnable. Win at least two of those, split the dates against Penn State and Oregon, and take down Indiana and earn the Floyd of Rosedale Trophy against Minnesota, and be deep in the Big Ten Championship mix going into the regular season finale against Nebraska.

Worst Case Scenario: Lose to Iowa State (again), struggle in the home games against Indiana, Penn State, Minnesota, and Oregon by losing three of them, and split the road games against Rutgers and Washington.

Realistically, Iowa will get to six wins and go bowling, but it takes a home win over Michigan State to exhale.

What Will Happen: (Feb 10) Iowa might not be talented enough to win the Big Ten title, but the schedule is decent enough be in the mix for the College Football Playoff if it wins two of its first three road games.

There will be close losses at home - the Hawkeyes won’t beat both Penn State and Oregon - but it’ll have a shot at a big bowl game with a strong November. The CFP is a bit of a stretch, though.

The What Will Happen will be updated several times this offseason