Iowa Football: UNI 2009 How to Watch and Game Thread

Eleven years ago, the Iowa Hawkeyes were waking up week one of the college football season preparing to beat the living snot out of the Northern Iowa Panthers. While UNI was a quality FCS opponent, Iowa was fresh off a 9-4 2008 campaign that saw the Hawkeyes win six of their last seven games, including a 55-0 demolition of Minnesota (as well as a goalpost acquisition) in the final regular season and a 31-10 drubbing of a vaunted SEC opponent in the Outback Bowl.

While Iowa was without Doak Walker Award winner Shonn Greene (although the DI apparently forgot that in their preview), expectations for the season were reasonably high after finding something in QB Ricky Stanzi the year prior and a quality defense returning. It was supposed to be one of those totally forgettable week one tune up games before we really learned what this team was made of in a few weeks.

It was not.

Here’s what you need to know as we re-live this disastrously glorious week one matchup between Iowa and UNI.

#21 Iowa Hawkeyes vs. Northern Iowa Panthers

Date: Saturday, September 5, 2009
Kickoff Time: 11:00 am CT
Watch Link: YouTube
Game Preview: Iowa Takes on Norther Iowa. In 2009.
Original Game Thread: GAMEOPENLIVETHREADBLOG: LET THE PUNINTHING BEGIN

Apologies in advance - the longest version of the game available appears to be condensed to roughly 13 minutes. Thirteen freaking minutes. That might be because outside the last minute of the game, it was candidly pretty miserable as an Iowa fan. You can see that by following along in the original game thread. Open the old thread in a new window and go side-by-side with the video so you thoroughly embrace the experience of re-living the roller coaster ride that fine Saturday was before we got the golden memory of the finale.

And with that, we’re off. Usual rules apply. Play nice in the comments.