By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Iowa and Northern Illinois will meet for the 11th time in football in Saturday’s season opener at Kinnick Stadium.

Iowa leads the all-time series 9-1, the lone loss coming in 2013 by a score of 30-27 at Kinnick Stadium.

But that was a really good Northern Illinois team, one of the most accomplished in program history; a team that finished 12-2 and featured one of the best players in college football in quarterback Jordan Lynch, who finished third in the voting for the Heisman Trophy that season.

The current Northern Illinois squad, on the other hand, shows little resemblance to the celebrated squad from 13 years ago.

The 2013 squad had high expectations, while the 2026 Northern Illinois team is expected to struggle in its first season as a member of the Mountain West Conference.

Northern Illinois is coming off a 3-9 season, so there is little momentum from which to build.

There was also a head coaching change at one of the worst times as previous head coach Thomas Hammock left in February to the join the Seattle Seahawks coaching staff.

He was replaced by Rob Harley on an interim basis.

Harley took over a team that has questions at quarterback, youth and inexperience on both lines and zero returning starters on defense, though that might be addition by subtraction based on how poorly the Huskies performed last season.

Athlon Sports picked Northern Illinois to finish in 10th place in the Mountain West Conference this season.

So what does all this mean?

It means that Northern Illinois has seen better days, and that Iowa should win convincingly on Saturday no matter who plays quarterback for the Hawkeyes.

The goal should be to win by a large enough margin that third-team quarterback Jimmy Sullivan sees some game action for Iowa.

“Any game, regardless, you always have to be ready, because there’s no way to predict exactly what this year’s team is going to look like or what their approach is going to be,” Kirk Ferentz said of Northern Illinois. “So bottom line is we need to make sure we’re prepared, and we need to be sound, alert, and be flexible.”

Iowa, of course, will try to establish the run, and should have little trouble doing so.

But also look for offensive coordinator Tim Lester to take some chances downfield, because after all, Iowa has a quarterback competition to settle.

Kirk Ferentz is 24-3 in season openers as the Iowa head coach, and while no disrespect to Ferentz, most of the opponents have left something to be desired from a talent standpoint.

Kirk Ferentz would prefer to have a clear-cut starter at quarterback, but at least he won’t have to pick one while playing a tough nonconference schedule.

You never assume anything against Iowa State, which has won three of the last four games in the series.

But it’s just hard seeing an Iowa State squad that was almost completely rebuilt, and with a new head coach, winning at Kinnick Stadium.

Ferentz would certainly have some explaining to do if it were to happen.

Ferentz would have some explaining to do it Iowa were to lose any of its three nonconference games with Northern Iowa the third nonconference opponent on Sept. 19 at Kinnick Stadium.

Northern Iowa is similar to Northern Illinois in that it also has seen better days.

The gut feeling is that Hank Brown will get the start over Jeremy Hecklinski at quarterback for Iowa on Saturday, the thinking being that Brown might be more careful with the football.

Brown is also a year older and B comes from before H in the alphabet.

Ferentz said who starts on Saturday is inconsequential because both quarterbacks will get a chance to prove himself since neither has created any separation in preseason practice.

It now seems pretty apparent that the nonconference schedule will help to determine who should start at quarterback.

“I think we probably need more evidence, and the next step is see how guys play in ball games,” Ferentz said. “We’ve been in that situation before, so we’ll let that play out as it goes. Hard to predict how it’s going to go. We’ll wait and see.”

An Iowa season opener usually has an inferior opponent playing against the Hawkeyes at Kinnick Stadium on a hot and sticky day.

That will certainly be the case again on Saturday.

Prediction: Iowa 37, Northern Illinois 12