Iowa football: Where members of the 2010 Orange Bowl champions are today
By Andrew Wade
With the Iowa football season over, we wanted to take a look back in time to where key members of the 2010 Orange Bowl championship team are today.
It’s been nearly ten years since the Iowa football program won their most important bowl game in the Kirk Ferentz era. With Ricky Stanzi under center, the Hawks went on a run to begin the season starting with eight straight wins. In fact, the closest game they had during that run was actually a 17-16 victory over the Northern Iowa Panthers who somehow had two game-winning field goal attempts blocked.
The Hawks would rise to as high 7th in the country after that eighth win before they would suffer a loss to the Northwestern Wildcats. The Wildcats knocked star quarterback Stanzi out early in the game and backup James Vandenberg couldn’t get the offense moving. Vandenberg would play much better the next week against Ohio State, but the outcome would be another loss, dropping the Hawks to 8-2.
Fortunately for the Iowa football team, Stanzi would return the final week and lead the Hawks to two more victories, finishing the season 10-2. This strong finish was enough to convince the Orange Bowl committee to invite the Iowa football team to the 2010 Orange Bowl to face off against Georgia Tech and their triple-option attack.
The Iowa football team would go on to win this game and cement their legacies in Hawkeye history. That team had an immense amount of talent on it. Seventeen of the players on the active roster would go on to get drafted after their Iowa football careers were finished and a dozen more found their ways onto NFL rosters.
Today, we’re going to take a look back at some of the key players from one of the best teams Kirk Ferentz has ever coached.