Iowa football: Game-time notes for Northwestern game

The Iowa football team is hours away from taking on Northwestern in a game they can’t afford to lose. Here’s the game-time info you need to know.

The Iowa football team comes into today’s game favored by 9.5 points, according to Action Network, on the road against a hapless 1-5 Northwestern team that has only beaten 2-5 UNLV, but if history has told us anything, it’s that this game shouldn’t be taken lightly.

The Wildcats own a 3-game winning streak versus Iowa and since Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald took over, Iowa is just 5-8 against their Chicago-based Big Ten foes.

Unlike previous years though, Northwestern’s offense is not just average, it’s atrocious. Injuries have derailed some intriguing promise from this squad, and they only have one player who seems to be able to move the ball for the Wildcats. Defensively though, this team is stout, which means they stand a chance as the Iowa football team has struggled offensively the past three weeks.

Unfortunately, this offense will have to get back on track without the help of number one wide receiver Brandon Smith so as you can imagine, a big question for Iowa football fans is, who will take his place as the top wide receiver and who is going to be Iowa’s red zone guy?

Hopefully, we will find out early because the weather forecast doesn’t appear to be ideal heading into the second half of this ball game. Rain is projected at 70% in the second half, which means Iowa needs to jump out to a lead quick so they can control the ball in the second half in the bad weather.

This Big Ten matchup will be aired on ESPN2, but if you don’t have access to ESPN2, you can catch this game on FuboTV.

With the Hawks still holding on to hopes of winning the Big Ten West, they can’t afford to lose a game from here on out. Furthermore, they have a pivotal game against Wisconsin looming in two weeks so, in an ideal world, we see the Iowa football team come out strong against Northwestern and take care of business early while cleaning up some of the issues from the past few weeks.

We’ll find out soon though with kickoff taking place at 11 AM CST.

Go Hawks!