What exactly would you, the reader, consider the goal for the 2024 season?
Of course, if you ask Kirk Ferentz and his staff their end goal for the upcoming college football season, it would be to bring home the Big Ten championship.
Now, even as fans, we all know that is a massive stretch for the Hawkeyes, who last won a share of the Big Ten back in 2004. With the West Coast expansion of the conference, and teams like Ohio State bolstering their already typically great squads, winning the conference would be a tough sell for even the biggest homer Iowa fan.
For the past decade or so, there has been an attainable goal for the Hawkeyes: make it to the Big Ten Championship game. Wrestling the Big Ten away from powerhouse programs like Ohio State and Michigan is tough for any team, but the goal is to always give yourself a chance. With the conference realignment in 2010, that avenue towards a championship was created. The Big Ten held their first conference championship game in 2011.
At first, it was the battle between the “Leaders” and “Legends” divisions for the Big Ten crown. After a few years, the conference switched to the much more practical East and West divisions. Iowa would be the best in the West, making the conference championship game in 2015, 2021, and, most recently, last season.
With a new round of realignment transpiring, the divisions were done away with. No more Leaders and Legends, no more East vs. West. Now, the Big Ten Championship game is going to be played between the two best teams in the conference.
It was an overdue change. While it was nice for the Hawkeyes to have the West division to play for as a goal every year, it was pretty much a consolation prize with a better sounding name.
In both of their recent championship game performances, the Hawkeyes got walloped by Michigan. The Wolverines won both games by a combined score of 68-3. The rest of the West didn’t fare any better as the East division’s representative won the Big Ten Championship game every single year. It was a pretty unfair system that rewarded mediocrity on one side and hampered the top teams in the East.
Now that leads me to a massive question ahead of this season, what should the reasonable goal be for the Hawkeyes this year? What would define a successful season for Kirk Ferentz and his men?
Should it be to win games like normal, being the same solid team on the cusp of top 25 status? Should it be even higher? Or, should the goal of the season be to see change? To see some fresh ideas implemented and an eye on a better future for Iowa, even if it results in some shaky performances this year?
The crutch of making it to the Big Ten Championship game every year by beating a weak West division is now gone. Now, it’s time to see what kind of program Iowa wants to be.
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