Iowa football: Historically, Purdue has had the Hawks number

Given Purdue’s recent history of not being great, one would expect the Iowa football team to have dominated this long-standing series, but they haven’t.

When the Big Ten split into two divisions and called them the leaders and the legends division, most people laughed. Let’s be honest, it was a ridiculous naming convention. Iowa football fans, specifically though, laughed at their protected rivalry being Purdue. After all, we don’t have a trophy game with Purdue, and it hasn’t been much of a series since Hayden Fry took over the Hawks.

In fact, since Hayden Fry took over the Iowa football program and then handed it to Kirk Ferentz, the Hawks have gone 22-11 against Purdue with three of those losses coming in the first four years of Fry’s tenure and two coming in the last two seasons.

But historically speaking, Purdue has dominated this series going an impressive 48-38-3 against the Hawks. Prior to Fry, those numbers would have been 37-16-2.

That’s dominant in my mind.

But the only history that matters in this series is the most recent history. The history that has seen the Iowa football team struggle to defeat a lesser-talented Purdue team for the last two years.

Last year, coming off a loss to Penn State in Happy Valley, the Iowa football team couldn’t pull it together against Jeff Brohm’s Boilermakers and lost on a last-second field goal (that was certainly helped by some questionable officiating). The year prior, Iowa was coming off a 38-14 drubbing by Wisconsin and then laid an egg at home against Purdue.

Well, folks, we’ve got round three against Purdue in which the Iowa football team needs a win after a disappointing loss against a top team.

Will the Iowa football team continue its recent trend of continuing its downward spiral with a loss against an inferior Purdue team or will they buck the trend and align more with the success of the last 40 years?

We’ll find out in just a few short days.