Peterson: Iowa's Embarrassing Performance Against Iowa State a Reminder That Nebraska Isn't Willing to Settle

Nebraska rolled Akron on Saturday, running away from the Zips in a 68-0 shutout, the first for the Cornhuskers since the 2009 Holiday Bowl. The Husker offense, nine days after a solid, if unexplosive, debut against Cincinnati, was particularly great. Removing the drive that finished the first half – one play, a kneel down – as well as the final drive of the game – five plays, 23 yards, game over – the offense gained 691 of a possible 710 available yards.

That’s 97.3%.

I’ve been watching Nebraska football since 1996, and if they’ve done something like that in close to three decades of football, I don’t recall seeing it. Even in the 77-14 win over Iowa State in 1997 or the 73-7 domination of Idaho State in 2012, the offense stalled and had to punt. Twice in each game, in fact.

Nebraska didn’t punt it a single time against Akron. Instead, their drives ended at the Akron one-yard line (twice), as well as the 17. Those three drives all happened in the first 16 minutes of the entire game, and with a 12-0 lead in the early part of the second quarter, I wondered to myself if we were watching the beginning of a sloppy, unexciting win.

Three Nebraska drives later, they were up 33-0, on their way towards halftime. They scored touchdowns on their first five drives of the second half, with starters and backups putting a definitive stamp on the most dominating home win by the Cornhuskers since 1982.

@USC1620, these are the top five margin of victories at memorial stadium do we add to the list in the next two weeks? @joshtweeterson @JohnBishop71 pic.twitter.com/bpKTLjYedc
— Sam (@_lishoon) September 4, 2025

And it came 10 months after Matt Rhule made his boldest move as Nebraska’s head coach.

Not only did he bring Dana Holgorsen onto the staff with three games left in the 2024 regular season, but he also demoted Marcus Satterfield in the process. With Holgorsen as the coordinator, the Husker offense would explode for 44 against Wisconsin in the long-awaited sixth win of the season. And while Nebraska scored just 20, 10, and 20 in the other three games, all eyes were on 2025. “Imagine what he’ll be able to do with an entire offseason to learn the names of his players!” we all said. “Imagine what he’ll be able to do with an entire offseason to plan an offense around Dylan Raiola!”

We’re no longer imagining it; we’re seeing it unfold right in front of our eyes. The offense just had its best day in over a decade. Raiola had his best night as a Husker, going 24-of-31 (77.4%) for 364 yards (11.7 yards per attempt) and four touchdowns. Ditto for Emmett Johnson on the ground, rushing for 140 yards on 14 carries, scoring two touchdowns on the ground and catching another. The 728 total yards were the eighth-most ever by a Nebraska offense.

Still thinking about this throw. pic.twitter.com/t6lrKueWe3
— Josh Peterson (@joshtweeterson) September 7, 2025

Matt Rhule’s late-season gamble is paying off, and if – and this is a big if – Nebraska is to take a big step forward, we’ll look back on that 2024 decision as the reason why.

If you’re a fan of college football, there’s a good chance you’ve seen the “Sickos Committee” Twitter account. It’s the one that finds fun inside the sport at all levels; the FCS rivalry you’ve never heard of getting gassed up one week, before weird mascot gifs get run the next. It includes the celebration of oddities on offense, defense, and special teams.

It’s inside this world that Iowa football lives.

The current iteration of the Iowa football program was seemingly built inside a lab specifically for the Sickos Committee. Take the Drive to 325, for example. It took over the internet two years ago, as the Iowa offense was the focus of a particular type of college football fan throughout much of the season. Would Brian Ferentz and the Iowa offense get to 325 points? If he couldn’t, he wouldn’t return as offensive coordinator in 2024. Follow along with graphics, videos, and highlights of each and every Iowa game! It was this way every single week. The Iowa football program was becoming a meme of its own creation.

Mark Gronowski's first two games as Iowa's quarterback have been a struggle, as the senior has gone 21-of-39 for just 127 yards. | Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

In the end, the program announced on Oct. 30 of that year that Brian Ferentz wouldn’t return the following season. His offense was putting up 19.5 points per game, which wouldn’t even equal 325 points if the Hawkeyes played in the Big Ten Championship Game, College Football Playoff semifinal, and national championship game.

And yet, the 2023 Iowa Hawkeyes went 10-4. It was head coach Kirk Ferentz’s second 10-win season in three years and his third since 2019. In fact, since 2019, Iowa has gone 53-24. That’s a win percentage of 68.8.

And, of course, it’s come with an offense that’s been one of the worst in the entire country.

I found myself thinking about both Nebraska and Iowa a lot on Saturday. Their games bookended the day. Long before Nebraska put up its most points in 13 years, Iowa lost its annual rivalry matchup vs. Iowa State in typical Iowa fashion.

The Hawkeyes scored 13 points in the three-point loss to the Cyclones. They picked up 16 total first downs. They gained just 214 yards. And in his second game as Iowa starting quarterback, former FCS star Mark Gronowski put up a listless 83 yards* on 13-of-24 passing. His 3.5 yards per attempt would be terrible for a running back. To do so through the air was downright putrid.

*A stat has been going around that’s hard to believe, but is true; TJ Lateef, going 6-of-7 for 128 yards in mop-up duty vs. Akron, now has more yards through the air than Gronowski does – 127 – through two games.

It was embarrassing.

Which is what Iowa football has become.

Embarrassing.

After their loss to Iowa State on Saturday, Kirk Ferentz and the Iowa Hawkeyes are off to a 1-1 start. | Reese Strickland-Imagn Images

Save me with all the wins they have over the last handful of seasons. And certainly, save me with their record against Nebraska* since 2015. I know what they’ve done. I did a damn podcast series that, in part, was built around the terrible losses Nebraska has had against Iowa! There’s no doubt that all of that is very much on the table again on Black Friday, not only because of the history between the two programs, but also because even after the horrific offensive showing by the Hawkeyes, Iowa State needed a 54-yard field goal to win Saturday.

*9-1, with the only loss coming in 2022 the day before news broke that Matt Rhule was the next Nebraska head coach.

This is who Iowa is, for all the wrong reasons. How many times have you heard, “This is exactly the type of game Iowa wants to play in,” like it’s some badge of honor that they average 3.4 yards per play and almost win a football game? The only reason Iowa football’s downfalls aren’t taken seriously is because their existence is taking place in the “sickos” era of CFB; they’re viewed as a cute story.

But Iowa football isn’t a cute story. They’re constantly wasting an incredible defense, with Bill Connelly’s SP+ rankings placing the Iowa defense at 1st in 2019, 1st in 2020, 3rd in 2021, 1st in 2022, 3rd in 2023, and 5th in 2024. The 2025 unit currently sits at 15th in the country.

They play great special teams.

They play great defense.

Their offense is a punchline.

They win football games.

Congrats, Iowa, you win games in spite of yourself. If your head coach took the offensive phase of football as seriously as he takes defense and special teams, you’d be an annual playoff participant. Not just a plucky underdog, but a Big Ten team to be reckoned with.

Logan Roy put it best on Succession; “You are not serious people.”

Nebraska running back Emmett Johnson scores on a 47-yard run against Akron. — Emmett Johnson has started 2025 by going for a career-high rushing yards in each of his first two games. | Kenny Larabee, KLIN

Both Nebraska and Iowa still have nine games left in the regular season before they meet the day after Thanksgiving in Lincoln. Iowa’s offense won’t look that bad* every week. They’ll pick up wins in games that unfold similarly to Saturday’s loss vs. Iowa State. “This is exactly the type of game Iowa wants to play in,” will probably get said. And that sentiment won’t be wrong.

*At least, I don’t think it will. No guarantees!

Meanwhile, Nebraska’s offense will come back down to earth, perhaps as soon as this weekend against Houston Christian or the next against Michigan. But when Nebraska’s offense performs well this year, don’t forget what Rhule was willing to do – what the Nebraska program is willing to do – to scratch and claw their way back to respectability, if not outright relevance.

Nebraska football had no desire to win football games in spite of themselves. The 2024 offensive performances against Purdue, Rutgers, and UCLA were not good enough. Hell, the inability to finish against Ohio State in 2024 or even against Cincinnati in Kansas City wasn't good enough. You could hear it in Holgorsen’s words last week.

Nebraska football won't settle.

I won’t make any promises that Nebraska won't lose in embarrassing fashion, but if you’re going to be embarrassing as a program, it might as well be because you try and fail, rather than the alternative.

Iowa football continues to lean into the alternative.

Agree or disagree, if you have a comment for Josh, send him an email: joshpeterson.huskermax@gmail.com.

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