Where I Come From: Memorable Moments In Hawkeye History

5. Wegher’s TD to seal it against the Jackets in South Beach
4. 55-0
3. Beating Wisconsin in Alvarez’s last game (forget the year)
2. The final drive against Purdue in 2002
1. Goalpost-gate 2002 in Kinnick North

I live in Orlando and all my Gator friends assured me that Iowa had no chance. They were stunned.

The 04 Penn St. game. not so much the 6-4 win but I will forever remember the emotional state of the team after the game with Ferentz just losing his father. It is a memory that will forever be engraved in my mind and always brings tears to my eyes. Scothawks video tribute to that is just chilling.

Rob Houghtlin’s kick against Michigan was very memorable for so many reasons. I was home on leave from the Air Force and my Dad got my Wife(now divorced) and my oldest brother and I tickets for that game. When the Kick went throught the uprights, my usually very stoic and in control brother looked at me and I at him and for probably the first time in his life, he did something spontaneous……he grabbed my arm and we rushed the field!!!! OMG That was a huge surprise.
That was very much a special event, but It was surpassed this last January when the final seconds ticked off the clock of the Orange Bowl and my son and I, watching the game on my big screen TV in the mechanic’s bay of Bud’ Tire, chest bumped and hugged as the Hawks spanked GT….that moment between father and son ushered in a new era in special moments. I hope he reads this, as he is an ardent reader of BHGP.

Thanks for the opportunity to comment on this subject.

Ugliest football ever!

is amazing.

2002 Purdue game. I can’t remember if I watched it live, but I’ve seen it twice since. I just love listening to Bob Davie and his mispronounciations. “Great play by Iowa’s safety John Constantine there”. I wish I could remember more.

I know, it’s not really a moment, and it was just for little while, but there it was. Number fucking one. You know that Orange Bowl victory high? #1 is better, and you get to have it every week. I remember just staring at the list every week and reading it over and over. Wish I had clipped it out of the paper and framed it, but at 16 you figure “hey, they’ve arrived”. 25 years later I’m waiting for them to arrive again.

I was a grad student at Michigan at the time… of course I was the only person I knew who was happy about it… still seeing my roommate walking through the door soaking wet…

Especially the Capital Bowl one, when I’m in a dusty environment. Might be allergies. Yep, that’s it.

/don’t judge me

game as Hawkeye was this year vs. UNI, and much to my surprise we set an FBS record by blocking two kicks in a row.

….and those who were there remember the sense of RELIEF when Houghtlin made it, partly because of the win but mainly because Iowa had clearly been the better team, and it would have been a tragedy/travesty for us to have lost it after having outplayed the Wolverines.

I’d put Marv Cook’s game ending catch-run as #2, since it was a last-play win at The Shoe in dramatic fashion, which I fear we may never see again.

The best play nobody ever saw—and I think I’ve only seen it once on tape—was this incredible pass reception by Ronnie Harmon at Happy Valley in 1983, in the best Iowa game nobody ever saw, a 42-34 win. If anyone has a videotape of this game in its entirety, I would probably pay $500 for it.

How about Ron Hawley knocking over the goalpost at MSU? Surely that’s memorable.

In the early Ferentz years, I recall Kaeding made an OT kick to beat PSU in one of our first B10 wins under Ferentz. Pretty massive play by a kicker who, at the time, was not yet Nate Kaeding, if you know what I mean.

Finally, in defense of a much-maligned guy, I’ll always have a soft spot for Trey Stross making that critical 3rd down catch against GT in the OB this year. Emotionally, I found that very satisfying for the young man—what a great way for him to end his career after that tough day in Columbus.

Because I’m stunned nobody’s mentioned the Ameri-Stanzi speech.

It gets overshadowed (understandably so) by The Kick, but that same season at Purdue (might have been the week after the Michigan game), Houghtlin booted another last-second game winner to beat Purdue. We lose there, no Rose Bowl.

but the win over Illinois in 1990 is up there for me for the same reason the win over Ohio State in ’04 is. They are the only two times I can remember facing a highly-ranked/regarded team and just wiping the floor with them. Anticlimactic? Sure, but the giddiness that builds into a sort of euphoria where everyone is just smiling and happy as Hell is close to unbeatable.

is completely underrated. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it, at any level of play.

I think I will always consider the Houghtlin kick over Michigan as number 1, and probably the 2 Rose Bowl wins (1956 and 1958) as #2 and #3. I have no way to tell someone that they aren’t the greatest moments in Hawk history.

However, from my memory bank, I have to go with these in some order:

Dallas’s catch in the end zone to beat Purdue.
Holloway’s New Year’s Heave Catch.
Post-game insanity after the Minnesota win in 2002.

I witnessed the Clark catch and the Minnesota celebration, and I probably favor the Minnesota celebration. It was a hell of a team in 2002, and the bloom was not off the “rose” yet.

Kahlil Hill forced into taking a safety with Iowa down 10-9.

This is one of those plays that I seem to remember being there, and having a perfect seat to see it. On the other hand, I’m not sure I was at that game, and after watching the YouTube, my memory falsely recalls him running farther laterally through the end zone before being tackled.

And it seemed real. It seemed like us and it seemed like, well, our home. If not Arizona, then a land not too far away. Where all parents are strong and wise and capable and all children are happy and beloved. I don’t know. Maybe it was Utah.

Also, Tim Dwight is an immortal.

And, I’m still annoyed that the NFL said Shonn was slow because he didn’t run fast in his underwear on a prepared track in February. I suspect now the NFL is annoyed that they thought running fast in your underwear on a prepared track meant you were fast while playing the most violent game, but what a bunch of putzes. The guy was running away from DBs all year.

with about 200 links to these better moments. I don’t think anyone has assembled all of them.

the great Evashevski teams and, of course, 1939, which all predate me, I have it down to these:

1981 Michigan State— The game itself is not so memorable as the fact that it’s the game that sent Iowa to the Rose Bowl after 19 or so non-winning seasons ( a .500 season in there somewhere). If Ohio State beat Michigan and we won, it was the Rose Bowl, but if Michigan won, it was the Liberty Bowl, a huge drop-off. Like several other people, I found someone nearby who brought a battery-operated AM radio and was getting the broadcast of the Michigan/ Ohio State game. Those of us sitting near him got him to report to us, we reported to the rows near us, and so on. This was going on all over the stadium. Art Schlichter scored for OSU with about a minute to go in the game, and early in the second quarter of our game. Pockets of pandemoium broke out as that game ended with an OSU win. About 5 minutes later, Father Bob announced the final score, and things really got wild around the stadium. Iowa, however, did not have a good first half, and we were either up or down by 2 at half, I don’t remember now. But it was all Iowa in the second half and by the 4th quarter, roses were everywhere in the stadium, passed out by older fans who had wondered whether they would ever see a day like this again after 20 years of losing. As a mentioned in an earlier post, after Iowa’s final score, about 2,000 people ran into the endzone to do push-ups with Herky, then ran right back into the sideline or stands. It was an amazing day.

Northwestern, 2002—Another poster mentioned this, and it was in some ways the most touching moment I have seen as a fan. Frankly, Hayden had left the cupboard pretty bare when he left., and Ferentz tried to put a line together with a bunch of undersized guys, including tight ends. They bore the brunt of the blame for Iowa’s ineptitude in 1999 and 2000. But they grew into what may be the greatest offensive line Iowa has ever had. So, on Senior Day, the game in hand and the team on its way to a Big Ten Championship, this rag-tag group trotted, hand in hand, triumphantly off the field in the most deserved curtain call I have ever seen. To me, this was and remains the single indelible image of Kirk Ferentz’ years at Iowa. It symbolizes the program.

Michigan, 1985—I posted earlier that I was frankly disappointed that it came to a Rob Houghtlin kick. We were cheated out of a touchdown by the refs in the first half on a Scott Helverson catch in the end zone that was called out of bounds. Houghtlin missed a 40-yarder early in the fourth and Long had one bad interception. While we were a better team, the dramatic ending is still significant, and moreso, the fact that we were not only number one, but had been number one for a few weeks, ultimately six, before an awful performance by Long at OSU. After Michigan, we were not only number one but a unanimous number one by the poll voters. Even sweeter living in Oklahoma at the time, but to be on the top and undisputed was a fantastic feeling.

This, for purely selfish reasons is my favorite;

November 17, 1990- My first Iowa football game in person. I was in the top row of the south end zone with my dad and colder than I had ever been in my life to that point. At some point while beating the holy bejesus out of Purdue, Herkey walked onto the field with a suitcase and began throwing roses. We had just clinched the Big Ten Title and a trip (our last one to date) to Pasadena.

Purdue at Iowa 2002

And I had forgotten that that particular game had Mr. David Porter (OL) catch a pinball and rumble forward for a few yards. This was brought back by an illegal touching penalty. To this day, I still don’t understand this. Can someone clarify?

If you need a refresher, just go to about 5:00 on that hulu video.

I remember standing at Hubbard Park and going absolutely apeshit when it happened. Then I called everyone I knew back home and asked them if they were watching. None of them were. Assholes.