2015 was a surprising year for Iowa football team, and it gave us one more surprise in the Rose Bowl.

By Danny Payne
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PASADENA, Calif. — If nothing else, Iowa’s 2015 football season surprised us. Some thought this team would win six or seven games and slide its way into a mediocre, meaningless bowl. It won 12 regular-season games, was ranked as high as No. 4 in the nation, and gave its fans thrill after thrill after thrill along the way.

It was fantastic; the Hawkeyes were supposed to be a team of destiny, the underdog crashing the College Football Playoffs and giving Iowa and its fans the upper hand over naysayers looking on.

Then the postseason happened, and it was all gone.

A matchup in the Big Ten Championship was one of the most heartbreaking losses in Iowa history. Michigan State’s nine-minute, 22-play drive, which ended any Hawkeye chance at the College Football Playoffs, was painful in the moment, but the pain of realizing how close the Hawkeyes were to that playoff has to sting even more after the 45-16 embarrassment at the hands of No. 6 Stanford on Jan. 1.

Some dreamed of Kirk Ferentz ending the final chapter of his redemption season accepting the Rose Bowl trophy in the Southern California night. Instead, he and his team left the stadium empty-handed, looking shocked and numb.

Instead of answering questions of how he took a bad 7-6 team to a great 12-2 team, in one year, he’ll face questions regarding his team’s grossly unsuccessful bowl trips following the 2010 Orange Bowl, the last two of which have been lost by a combined 46 points.

Instead of celebrating in Pasadena, as Stanford had earned the right to, the only choice Hawkeye players had was to admit they weren’t ready to play.

Perhaps in Iowa’s next bowl (and using 2015 as Exhibit A, who’s to say that bowl won’t be a member of the New Year’s Six?) Ferentz will completely overhaul his bowl-preparation process and get his team to show up, which it hasn’t done in the last two years by any stretch of the imagination.

That’s not to say the season was all bad. As noted above, there were great moments Iowa fans will have — the Marshall Koehn game-winning field goal against Pittsburgh, a win at Wisconsin, and avenging 2014’s debacle with a win at Nebraska, to name a few.

Those seemingly came out of nowhere, just as this whole season did. There was so much reason to be confident going into college football’s best game, and there isn’t a good reason anyone expecting to get embarrassed had for those feelings.

But, as 2015 showed us, surprises happen, and the Hawkeyes sure got one in the Granddaddy of Them All, in all stages.

A strong potential for a season of “what was” was instead soured into a season of “what could have been.”

Highlighted — or lowlighted — by its most recent memory, Iowa’s postseason brought a screeching end to what could have been the best season in the program’s history.

But it was instead, the best, most surprising regular season the Hawks have ever had, and nothing more.

That’s the biggest surprise of them all.

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