By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Now that we know who and where and when the Iowa football team will play its bowl game, let’s focus on the 800-pound gorilla in the room.

That would be Iowa’s ineptitude in bowl games.

You can’t even say recent bowl games anymore because Iowa has lost five bowl games in a row, and only one of the games was close, that being the 21-14 loss to Louisiana State in the 2013 Outback Bowl.

Iowa was outscored 152-60 in the other four bowl losses combined. But even more alarming is that Iowa was outscored 108-10 in the first half of the last five bowl games.

To lose a bowl game is one thing. But to lose in the manner in which Iowa has lost four of its last five bowl games is almost inexcusable.

So maybe a trip to the Big Apple to play Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl will be just what Iowa needs to end its bowl misery.

“For us seniors, we’ve been to four that we really haven’t gotten the result that we wanted,” said offensive lineman Sean Welsh. “So I think it’s time to push it through.”

The Pinstripe Bowl isn’t what most fans wanted, but Iowa only has itself to blame for losing to Northwestern.

Flip the outcome of that 17-10 overtime loss in Evanston on Oct. 21 and Iowa is probably headed to the Music City Bowl in Nashville to play Kentucky, whose head coach is former Iowa defensive back Mark Stoops, instead of to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx to face a 7-5 Boston College team.

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz always says that you get what you deserve and the 7-5 Hawkeyes got what they deserve with regard to their bowl matchup.

Ferentz has tried just about everything to end Iowa's bowl woes. His teams have traveled early to bowl games and later to other bowl games, and yet the results have been the same.

Ferentz plans to keep the team in Iowa City for as long as possible this month to take advantage of the new facilities and to avoid the potential traffic issues that could occur in and around New York City.

"I think we'll try to treat this a little bit more like a business trip, if you will," Ferentz said. "Try to get as much of our preparation done here where we have the friendly confines, convenience, all that type of thing.

"And then, you know, try to keep our preparation work minimal out there."

 

Fans wanted the Music City Bowl for several reasons, including location, price and the allure of Nashville.

But those hopes were crushed when Ohio State didn’t make the playoff, for which Iowa also is being blamed for having defeated the Buckeyes by 31 points on Nov. 4 at Kinnick Stadium. That created a domino effect that ultimately put Iowa in the Pinstripe Bowl, which will be played on Dec. 27.

A trip to New York City in late December could be a tough sell to Iowa fans because bowl games have long been viewed as a chance to escape from winter’s grip for just a few days to a warm climate such as Florida, California and Texas.

Iowa Athletic Director Gary Barta did his best to sell the game on Sunday while speaking to the media.

“New York City, I don't know if many of our fans have been there during the holidays; it's amazing, with the Rockefeller Center, the 9/11 Museum, chance to reflect back on that,” Barta said. “It's just a great place to be, so we're looking forward to it.”

Ferentz and the players who spoke to the media on Sunday all basically said the same thing. They’re just honored to represent Iowa in a bowl game and eager to embrace the challenge.

And really, what are they supposed to say?

The Pinstripe Bowl will be a homecoming of sorts for Iowa senior running back Akrum Wadley, who grew up about 30 minutes from Yankee Stadium in Newark, N.J.

It probably is fair to say the Pinstripe Bowl isn’t what Wadley envisioned for his final game as a Hawkeye.

But it will be a chance for him to play in front of family and friends who normally don’t have the luxury of watching Wadley in person because of the distance factor.

“I’m excited to go back home and just ready to get this last win,” Wadley said.

This will mark the first time that Iowa has played Boston College in football.

Former Iowa linebackers coach Jim Reid is in his second season as the Boston College defensive coordinator, so there is some familiarity and connections between the two programs.

But not much.

The Pinstripe Bowl will present a new kind of challenge for Iowa, a new location and a different opponent from a different conference.

Maybe it’ll help that Iowa isn’t facing a speedy team from the Southeastern Conference or from the Pac-12 because the Hawkeyes have looked slow and overmatched in their last five bowl games.

Boston College, which is a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference, won five of its last six regular-season games and is capable of defeating the Iowa team that lost five games this season.

But if Iowa performs anywhere close to its record-breaking performance against Ohio State, the 800-pound gorilla should be removed.

But that is a big if for a team that has been inconsistent throughout the season, especially on offense.

The 18 seniors on the team have been a part of 34 victories since 2014 and many of them were key contributors on Iowa’s 2015 team that finished the regular season with a 12-0 record.

But the 2015 team also was humiliated by Stanford in the Rose Bowl, losing 45-16 in a game that never was competitive.

“It’s huge,” senior linebacker Ben Niemann said of winning a bowl game. “None of us in this building have won a bowl and that’s our focus.

“That was one of the goals we had this summer and we want to win. It’s tough ending the year in a loss like we have the last three years I’ve been here. So we want to change that for sure.”

Iowa has to change that because the program has too many advantages to have lost this many bowl games in a row while hardly being competitive.

The Iowa fans might not show up in full force on Dec. 27, but it won’t matter if the Iowa team does.

And it’s long overdue for that to happen.