Building A Rivalry: Wisconsin Football vs. Iowa Hawkeyes

“They better get season tickets right now because, before long, they probably won’t be able to.”

Barry Alvarez’s statement during his introductory 1990 press conference announcing him as the head football coach of the University of Wisconsin was viewed as either bold visionary or complete buffoonery. After all, UW was coming off five consecutive losing seasons, was a combined 6-27 in the three seasons under previous head coach Don Morton and was a program that had its fans giving away tickets to the 1989 season opener against No.3 Miami (spoiler, UW lost 51-3).

Many fans likely thought Alvarez was in over his head when the Badgers went 1-10 his first season, but the groundwork was being laid that season for what has been – for the most part – 30 years of success.

Starting with Alvarez’s 16 seasons (1990-2005) and extending to Bret Bielema’s seven years (‘06-‘12), Gary Andersen’s brief tenure (‘13-‘14) and, now, Paul Chryst (‘15-present), Wisconsin has been one of the more successful programs in the Big Ten. The program has won six conference championships, been to seven Rose Bowls and won 15 bowl games. Most importantly, the Badgers have either swung momentum in Big Ten series, completely dominating conference teams or closed the gap against some of the league’s heavyweights.

To understand how impressive Wisconsin’s run of success has been in the Big Ten, BadgerBlitz will examine UW’s series against 11 Big Ten opponents, looking at where it was and how it has evolved over four different Badgers coaches (Note: for this exercise, we are not including UW’s conference games against Maryland and Rutgers. The Badgers are 3-0 against each school and have outscored them a combined 137-71 in those six games).

Today, we examine UW’s series against the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Many fans will remember the lean years of the late ‘70s through mid-‘90s against the Hawkeyes, but the Badgers were the dominant team when this series began in 1894. UW won the first meeting, 44-0, and won the first six meetings by a combined score of 128-19. It wasn’t until the 17th and 18th meeting between the two that Iowa had a two-game winning streak and it would be another 18 years before the Hawkeyes started another winning streak.

After UW’s victory in 1976, Wisconsin held a 34-19-1 edge in the series. Things dramatically changed after that. Leading up to Alvarez's beginning, UW went winless in 13 straight games against Iowa, the only moral victory being a 10-10 tie in Iowa City in 1984. Not only were the defeats becoming a yearly tradition, but the Badgers were also getting beat soundly, as every defeat was by double digits. Iowa was ranked four consecutive years during that stretch (’83-’86, including being No.1 in ’85), while UW had only five winning seasons.

Unlike Wisconsin’s meeting with some schools, success against Iowa didn’t come quickly. The Badgers lost their first five meetings against the Hawkeyes, although two of the losses were by four points or less (as luck would have it, UW’s ’93 Rose Bowl team or talented ’94 team didn’t play Iowa). After breaking the skid in ’97, the Badgers won five in a row for the first time since the early ‘60s, only to see Iowa win the final four games in the series of the Alvarez tenure.

Of the 10 Big Ten teams Alvarez coached against, his 5-9 record against Iowa was his second-worst winning percentage. But while the former Iowa linebacker coach struggled against the Hawks, the former Iowa defensive lineman with a Hawkeyes tattoo on his leg started to breakthrough.

Bielema went 3-2 against Iowa with all three in somewhat dramatic fashion: UW relied on backup quarterback Tyler Donovan to led them to a 24-21 road win in 2006, a 10-point fourth quarter to rally past Iowa the following year and a Brad Nortman fake punt in 2010 to stun Iowa, 31-30, that helped pave the way for UW to reach the Rose Bowl later that year.

A victim (and quirk) of conference realignment caused the series to go absent for two seasons and the ’13 and ’14 games to both be played in Iowa City. Led by Andersen, UW won both November road games by leading the entire second half. While Chryst’s Badgers lost an ugly four-turnover game in his coaching debut in the series in 2015, a ranked-UW team has won the last four years by a total of 45 points.

While Bielema’s early victories have set the tone for what has been nine victories in the last 12 meetings, the victory by Wisconsin on Nov.8, 1997, ended 20 years of dominance by the Hawkeyes. Iowa came to Camp Randall ranked No.12 in the country and had gone 17-0-1 against UW since 1977.

Wisconsin had a better overall and conference record, but thoughts of an upset looked grim when tailback Ron Dayne exited in the first quarter because of an ankle injury.

It didn’t matter, as backup tailback Eddie Faulkner rushed for 119 yards and a touchdown and Wisconsin held Iowa’s offense (which had scored at least 54 points four times in the first eight games) to 10 points in a three-point victory. A year earlier, UW lost to Iowa, 31-0.

“Barry did a great job of figuring out how to motivate us to win that game,” UW deputy athletic director Chris McIntosh (a redshirt sophomore left tackle in ’97) told to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel of that game. “In all honesty, ’97 wasn’t our best team in that stretch. But he figured out a way to motivate us to win that game without putting too much pressure on us or making too much of the 0-17-1 business. But he put just enough of a chip on our shoulder to go out and do that.”

UW won the next two years against Iowa by a combined score of 72-3, the second of which was the Dayne game when he broke the NCAA career rushing record and the Badgers clinched the outright Big Ten title.

The addition of the Heartland Trophy in 2004 added a little extra to the rivalry, which currently stands in favor of UW 48-43-2. Both teams being in the same division in the Big Ten guarantees a yearly matchup, which excites the fan base. Two programs with similar philosophies and styles on both sides of the ball, the matchup with Iowa is typically the litmus test for Wisconsin football. Therefore, it shouldn't be considered a surprise that the last four times Wisconsin advanced to the Big Ten title game, the Badgers beat Iowa during the season.

Wisconsin’s overall record vs Iowa pre-Alvarez: 34-31-2

Wisconsin’s record vs. the Hawkeyes since 1990: 14-12

The Alvarez Years: 5-9

The Bielema Years: 3-2

The Andersen Years: 2-0

The Chryst Years: 4-1