Tuesdays with Torbee

Holiday songs playing on the radio. That one eager neighbor stringing Christmas lights. Kirk Ferentz’s football team kicking tail on gridirons across the Midwest.

It can only mean one thing: November has arrived.

Nothing highlights the developmental aspect of Iowa football more than its stellar record when Halloween is in the rearview and the games that define a season arrive. And few coaches deliver early holiday gifts to fans better than Kirk Ferentz.

Since his first season in 1999, Ferentz has compiled a 62–31 record in the month of November, good for a sterling .667 winning percentage. That overall number includes a few rough seasons, including a pair of 0-fer Novembers in 2006 and 2010. Look at just the past five seasons, however, and upcoming November opponents should be very, very nervous. Since the 2019 season, the Hawks have gone 21–2 in the month before Christmas, good for a jaw-dropping .913 winning percentage.

That this month is paramount to the Iowa coach is hardly new news. Here’s what Ivan Maisel wrote for ESPN.com way back on Nov. 21, 2004: “This is what Kirk Ferentz does. Iowa becomes a late-season problem. Every November they get tougher, and every November they start ruining somebody’s plan.”

The Oregon Ducks’ plan is to win the Big Ten and make it into the College Football Playoff. Here’s hoping November 8 is opening day of duck season in Iowa City and the Hawkeyes have their birdshot primed and ready.

If Iowa pulls off the upset this coming Saturday, it will be one of the biggest, most exciting late-season wins in the Ferentz era. But it will hardly be alone. Here are my personal five favorite big November wins:

#5 — Nov. 29, 2019 – Iowa 27, Nebraska 24 in Lincoln. Keith Duncan tears out Husker hearts with a 48-yard game-winning field goal. Rubbing salt in the wounds, he turns toward the yappy Nebraska sidelines and gives a double “bye-bye” wave. Bonus points for knocking Nebraska out of bowl eligibility.

#4 — Nov. 4, 2000 – Iowa 26, Penn State 23 in State College. This one probably doesn’t stand out for all Hawkeye fans, considering the teams were a combined 5–14 at the time, but it was a sneakily important win in the Ferentz era. I didn’t even watch this game on television, figuring it would be another frustrating loss by the second-year coach who had only won two games and who, I figured, was probably going to be fired soon. I was fishing at the Coralville Spillway when the Hawkeyes made a huge defensive stop and nailed a clutch game-winning field goal, sending a message that Iowa was no longer the conference pushover.

#3 — Nov. 8, 2008 – Iowa 24, Penn State 23 in Iowa City. The Nittany Lions came into this one undefeated and with national championship dreams swimming in their minds. Iowa was a frustrating 5–4, coming off a frustrating three-point loss to Illinois. But stellar defense, relentless running by Shonn Greene, and an absolutely wild crowd willed Iowa to the last-second victory on a field goal from Daniel Murray that sent Kinnick into throes of ecstasy. That win was the first in a four-game win streak culminating in a 31–10 Outback Bowl beatdown of South Carolina, salvaging a “good” season.

#2 — Nov. 16, 2002 – Iowa 45, Minnesota 21 in Minneapolis. Kirk Ferentz’s first Big Ten championship. Clutching a rose in his teeth (in retrospect, guess it should have been an orange). Iowa fans tearing down the goalposts in the Hubert H. Humphrey Dome and trying to get them out of the building via revolving doors while Minnesota security blared loud noises. Perfection.

#1 — Nov. 20, 2004 – Iowa 30, Wisconsin 7 in Iowa City. I still have a clot of sod from the south endzone I gathered up after the field storming on this one. The game itself wasn’t very dramatic, mostly a thorough beatdown of a pretty solid Badger team. But during the game, the crowd learned Ohio State had pulled the upset over No. 7 Michigan, meaning Iowa would share its second Big Ten title in two years with a victory. This was a season that started with a woeful showing in the desert, Iowa getting boat-raced by a pretty average Arizona State squad 44–7, looking left for dead. All it did was pick itself up off the mat, win seven straight conference games after a narrow loss in Ann Arbor, and knock off the defending national champions LSU in the Capital One Bowl. This is the moment the “November Iowa” identity actually calcified.

It’s time to make this month another November to remember.

Follow me on BlueSky @torybrecht.bsky.social and tune in to the 12 Saturdays podcast on all platforms.