By Mike Hlas

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Hype is part of a sportswriter’s toolbox, so let’s pull it out and get to work as Saturday’s Iowa-Michigan football game approaches.

I’m saying it, and saying it with conviction: This is the Hawkeyes’ biggest game since they were ranked No. 3 and hosted No. 4 Penn State on Oct. 9, 2021.

Know that I’m talking about the biggest game going in, not the most-important enduring result. The Nittany Lions and Hawkeyes were 5-0 when they clashed at Kinnick Stadium five years ago. The game itself lived up to the hype, with Iowa scoring the game’s last 13 points for a thrilling 23-20 win.

That contest didn’t hold up when it came to importance, however. Iowa promptly lost 24-7 to Purdue at home the following week after climbing to No. 2 in the AP poll, its highest ascension since it was No. 1 for five weeks in 1985. The Hawkeyes finished the season 10-4, including a 42-3 loss to Michigan in the Big Ten championship.

Penn State fell even harder to earth, losing five more times after getting home from Iowa City.

OK, but the week leading into that 2021 game at Kinnick was No. 4 vs. No. 3. Both teams and both fan bases were allowed to dream of big possibilities that still remained. What good is being a fan if you can’t dream big once in a while?

All things are still possible for unbeatens Michigan and Iowa. More so Iowa, actually. The Wolverines still must play Penn State and Indiana at home, Oregon and Ohio State on the road. Iowa has Ohio State at home next weekend, and that would immediately be Iowa’s biggest game since the Penn State clash of ’21 if the Hawkeyes prevail at Michigan.

That Penn State win five years ago had been Iowa’s last over a ranked team until it beat Vanderbilt in last year’s ReliaQuest Bowl. Thirteen straight times, the Hawkeyes had lost to ranked foes. Four of those defeats were last season, all by one score. It wouldn’t have taken much more for Iowa to have been a College Football Playoff participant given it lost at CFP champion Indiana 20-15 and CFP entrant Oregon 18-16 on its way to an 8-4 regular-season.

So close, so far away. If current No. 17 Iowa is to reach the CFP this season, it absolutely must win at least one of the next three games. After Michigan and Ohio State comes a game at Washington the following Friday. What remains on the schedule after that is far from cherry-picking, but there isn’t a towering threat among any of the last six opponents.

The 9-3 and 8-4 regular-seasons that have become so familiar at Iowa are nothing to dismiss lightly. However, now that there’s a 12-team national playoff that may grow to 16 or even 24 clubs in the near future, going 9-3 and landing in Orlando or Tampa for the postseason will be less-satisfying. The Hawkeyes have a genuine opportunity Saturday to enter their name into the national conversation. You beat Michigan on the road and come home to play Ohio State, you don’t have to shout to get attention. It will come to you in waves. Then it’s really time to see if you meet the moment.

I tend not to give two hoots about whether ESPN’s GameDay is held in Athens, Georgia or Athens, Greece. If Pat McAfee’s part of it, I’m not particularly interested. However, I’m as aware as anyone how happy Hawkeyeville would be if it is aired from Iowa City for the first time in a whopping 20 years.

It doesn’t seem likely unless Iowa topples Michigan Saturday. Otherwise, GameDay could go with next week’s Washington-USC game in Los Angeles if USC beats Oregon Saturday in L.A. Or it could go offbeat for a week and head for Whitewater, Wis., where defending NCAA Division III-champion UW-River Falls will play the UW-Whitewater Warhawks.

I saw UW-River Falls beat then-No. 21 Coe College 38-6 on Oct. 12 in Cedar Rapids. I won’t say the Falcons impressed me more than Northern Illinois or Northern Iowa,  two of the three teams Iowa has played. But they did.