By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – On Nov. 5, 1898, the Iowa football team lost to the Iowa Teachers College 11-5 in Iowa City.

The Iowa Teachers College would later become the University of Northern Iowa in 1967, but by then, the series had turned extremely one sided with Iowa riding a 10-game winning streak.

In Iowa’s 10 wins from 1899 to 1914, Northern Iowa combined to score just 25 points and was held scoreless in five of the 10 games, including a 95-0 beat-down in 1914.

The teams quit playing after the 1914 season and the series would lay dormant until returning in 1995.

Iowa has won every game in the series since then, is 17-1 overall against the Panthers, and is favored by 41.5 points heading into Saturday’s game at Kinnick Stadium.

This will make the first time the teams have played since the 2018 season.

Northern Iowa, except for one game, has been more competitive since the series was renewed 31 years ago, losing by scores of 34-13 in 1995, 66-0 in 1997, 45-21 in 2005, 17-16 in 2009, 27-16 in 2012, 31-23 in 2014 and 38-14 in 2018.

But for the most part, this instate rivalry has been more one-sided than a political convention, and you should expect more of the same on Saturday.

You never say never, but it’s just hard to envision Northern Iowa pulling off an upset.

The oddsmakers certainly don’t expect it to happen based on the whopping point spread, and frankly, it shouldn’t happen.

A Big Ten team never should lose to an FCS opponent, even though it happens.

Iowa fell to FCS power North Dakota State 23-21 in 2016 at Kinnick Stadium, and Iowa nearly fell to Northern Iowa in 2009 at home.

Iowa had to block two straight field-goal attempts in the final seconds to escape with a 17-16 victory over Northern Iowa in 2009; a close call that Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz often brings up when explaining why no opponent should ever be taken lightly.

He did it again at his weekly press conference this past Tuesday.

“I’ll go back to our ’09 game. I’m thinking of one game in my career, which I’ll probably go to my grave saying we got screwed a little bit on, and I normally don’t blame it on outside circumstances, but there’s one that was a little tough to swallow,” Ferentz said. “Then I’ll also go to my grave knowing that we lost that game, and that took a miracle to win that game in ’09.

“To me, what it circles back to is the attitude you take into it. That was with a really good team. We had a good team and we were coming off a good season. You have to go into every game with the right attitude and right respect for your opponent and what it takes to be successful, and I think that’ll never change.”

Iowa did have a good team in 2009 as it finished 11-2 overall.

The close call against Northern Iowa had a jarring effect short term, but was no indication of things to come. It was a fluke rather than a warning sign.

There have been times, though, when the Northern Iowa game was maybe a warning of struggles to come.

For example, in 2012, the game was highly competitive as Iowa prevailed 27-16 after trailing 10-7 after the first quarter.

Iowa would go on to finish just 4-8 in 2012; but hasn’t had a losing season since then, while Northern Iowa finished 5-6 in 2012.

So neither team was very good in 2012, resulting in a competitive matchup.

Iowa also had a close call against Northern Iowa in 2014, winning 31-23 in the season opener at Kinnick Stadium.

Iowa would go on to finish just 7-6 that season, capped by a 45-28 loss to Tennessee in the TaxSlayer Bowl.

Kirk Ferentz had seen enough as he benched Jake Rudock and made C.J. Beathard the starting quarterback just a few days after the season ended.

Ferentz also switched practice from late afternoon to the morning, and has been following that routine ever since.

Northern Iowa is 1-1 this season under second-year head coach Todd Stepsis, the win coming against Drake, 56-14, last Saturday in Cedar Falls and the loss coming against at Eastern Washington by a score of 34-24 in the season opener.

The Panthers finished just 3-9 in Stepsis’ debut season last season.

Stepsis came to Northern Iowa from Drake where he was the head coach from 2019 to 2024, compiling a 29-32 overall mark, including 16-7 over his final two seasons.

That makes him familiar with the local landscape and with recruiting players that maybe fall below Iowa’s radar.

Iowa players often talk about having a chip on their shoulder from being disrespected, overlooked and under-valued.

But in this series, the chip probably fits better with the Northern Iowa players because most of them were told that they weren’t good enough to play at the highest level in college.

Iowa has a long history of turning Northern Iowa commits into Hawkeyes; a process that usually starts with a late scholarship offer or the chance to be a preferred walk-on.

Northern Iowa now also has to contend with the threat from the transfer portal as power-conference teams are always looking for hidden gems in the offseason.

Iowa added a program-record 16 players from the transfer portal this offseason, including nine from FCS schools, though none from Northern Iowa.

The Iowa-Northern Iowa football rivalry has withstood the test of time with another game set for the 2029 season.

But it has hardly been a rivalry because one program (Iowa) is vastly superior to the other, and for obvious reasons, including that Iowa just has way more firepower and resources than Norther Iowa does.

The Iowa-Iowa State football rivalry, on the other hand, has been highly competitive for nearly three decades, and that was the case again last Saturday as Iowa prevailed 16-13 on a late field goal.

Iowa vs. Iowa State matches two teams from two different power conferences with state bragging rights on the line, and right now, the series is as healthy as it’s ever been.

The best thing Northern Iowa seems to have as one of Iowa’s traditional opponents is its instate status.

That adds a little drama to the story line, but it still ultimately comes down to what happens on the field.

Money, of course, is also a factor as Northern Iowa will receive $700,000 for playing Iowa this season.

FCS teams seem more than willing to lose to a power-conference opponent if the price is right.

And every now and then, they’ll even pull off an upset.

The Panthers could be catching Iowa at a good time, if there is such a thing in this case, with Big Ten play starting next week at Michigan.

Iowa linebacker Cam Buffington was asked Tuesday about the challenge of not looking too far ahead to the Michigan game.

“I think each week it’s a faceless, nameless opponent. It doesn’t matter who it is,” Buffington said. “I think we have to prepare the hardest no matter who it is, no matter who we’ve got in the next couple weeks. It’s just this week and this opponent. You can’t get to Michigan unless you tot to UNI. So it’s just staying present and winning the day, taking our game prep and executing it to the best of our ability.”

If Northern Iowa were to make Saturday’s game close, or even slightly competitive, that would obviously concern Iowa fans, but would provide a boost for the rivalry.

However, that’s a massive, if, and probably too tall of a mountain to climb.

Iowa is poised to win the mythical state title, and if the point spread proves to be accurate, the outcome could be decided by halftime.

And if that were the case, the biggest question about Iowa probably would be who starts the second half at quarterback?

Prediction: Iowa 45, Northern Iowa 10 

Northern Iowa (1-1) vs. Iowa (2-0)

When: Saturday, 3:05 p.m.

Where: Kinnick Stadium, (69,250)

TV: FS1

Radio: Hawkeye Radio Network

Series history: Saturday’s game is the 19th meeting all-time between Iowa and UNI and the first since 2018. The Hawkeyes are 17-1 all-time against the Panthers with the lone loss coming in the first ever meeting in 1898.

SERIES RESULTS
11/5/1898 L, 5-11 (A)
9/23/1899 W, 22-0 (H)
10/6/1900 W, 69-0 (H)
10/5/1901 W, 16-0 (H)
10/4/1902 W, 26-5 (H)
10/03/1903 W, 29-0 (H)
10/22/1904 W, 11-5 (H)
10/28/1905 W, 41-5 (H)
10/7/1912 W, 35-7 (H)
10/8/1913 W, 45-3 (H)
10/3/1914 W, 95-0 (H)
9/9/1995 W, 34-13 (H)
9/6/1997 W, 66-0 (H)
9/17/2005 W, 45-21 (H)
9/5/2009 W, 17-16 (H)
9/15/2012 W, 27-16 (H)
8/30/2014 W, 31-23 (H)
9/15/2018 W, 38-14 (H)