Three DI staffers debate the team Iowa should schedule a home-and-home nonconference series with.

Oklahoma
Iowa should add Oklahoma to its nonconference schedule.On paper it looks like a great game. Oklahoma’s offense is explosive. The Sooners rank seventh in total yards this season, and they’re third in points per game. Seems like this matchup would be very one-sided in Oklahoma’s favor? Guess again.
Oklahoma has put up points this year, there’s no doubting that. However, defensively, Iowa has allowed 18.4 points a game, good for 16th in the nation. Put Iowa on Oklahoma’s schedule this season, and statistically, the Hawks would be the best defense for the Sooners to face. Iowa has also allowed the fewest yards compared with any team on Oklahoma’s schedule this season.
Iowa’s offense could hang with the Oklahoma, too. With an offense that relies heavily on the ground game, the Hawkeyes (who average 211.7 rushing yards a game) could attack the Sooners’ 45th-ranked run defense, which has allowed an average of 149.7 rushing yards a game.
But just because the teams match up well on paper does not solidify this as a viable game. Something else does.
Two words: Bob Stoops.
Stoops played for Iowa from 1979-1982, then coached at Iowa under Hayden Fry from 1983-1987. He was one of the many assistants under Fry’s wing to eventually become a head coach himself.
Stoops shares a close connection with the Iowa program, because it was his first coaching job. He said, in an interview with USA Today, that Kirk Ferentz and his wife are two of his closest friends.
Both Stoops and Ferentz interviewed for the head-coaching gig at Iowa on the same day. We all know who got the job.
Ferentz has led this year’s Hawkeyes to their best start in program history. Stoops’ Sooners just toppled previously unbeaten Baylor and are red hot, riding a five-game winning streak in which they’ve averaged 55 points a game. Iowa sits at sixth in the AP Poll, while Oklahoma is right behind at seventh.
Two teams in the top 10 led by coaches who are connected to each other, it’s the recipe for a high-stakes, prime-time, nonconference showdown between two evenly matched teams. Schedule Bobby’s boys, Iowa.
— by Adam Hensley

Arkansas
When it comes to choosing Iowa’s next nonconference opponent, the most logical response would have to be Arkansas for a couple of reasons that most Hawk fans can agree on.
First, we have good old Bret Bielema, or “Bert,” as some Hawkeye fans affectionately know him. The Razorback head coach has Iowa ties going back to his playing days, where he played nose guard for the legendary Hayden Fry. He then served as a graduate assistant for the Hawks. Bielema eventually made his way to head coach at Wisconsin, where his Badgers played several competitive, heated games against Iowa. Now at Arkansas, it seems logical that Bielema would like another shot at the Hawks. And I believe Iowa coach Krik Ferentz would gladly accept.
Second, debunking the notorious “SEC myth” would be a sweet, sweet victory. The myth runs rampant through the college football world, and it needs to be contained. Sure, there are a few great teams in the SEC. But the conference is far from flawless, as we’ve seen time and time again.
So it would be much to the delight of the conference’s haters to see a team from the mighty SEC fall in a nonconference game, and it would be even sweeter for Hawk fans if that loss came at the hands of “New Kirk” and the Hawkeyes.
— by Jake Mosbach

Missouri
Contrary to popular belief, suggesting playing the Tigers is not taboo.
In 1896, Missouri tried to refuse to let Iowa play Frank Holbrook, a black player on the Hawkeye roster. Iowa played him anyway in a contentious 12-0 Hawk victory (Holbrook scored one of the two Hawkeye touchdowns). In 1910, Missouri again demanded that the Hawkeyes not play Archie Alexander, who was black. Iowa canceled the game and refused to play Missouri again. The unwillingness to play each other has stemmed from that football history, and football can fix it.
Iowa got over it in the ’90s.
The Hawkeyes scheduled nonconference games with the Tigers to be played from 2005-08. Once the time neared, Missouri backed out because it wanted a weaker schedule.
Clearly, sports officials have decided that the two teams can play each other. (Iowa and Missouri did play each other in the 2010 Insight Bowl; the Hawks beat the No. 14 Tigers, 27-24.)
And playing a game Just. Makes. Sense.
The Tigers play at Faurot Field, just 230 miles from Kinnick Stadium. Missouri is a border state. Geographically, it just makes sense.
A football game between the Hawkeyes and Tigers would fill every seat in either team’s stadium. Revenue for a game against Missouri, which would certainly become an archrivalry game, would be far greater than for a game against an Division-2 school. Financially, it just makes sense.
Not only would it be a great idea to schedule Missouri as a perennial game in football, but scheduling the Tigers in football would open the gate to scheduling in all sports.
Other sports would benefit from scheduling Missouri for financial and competitive reasons. And if the football rivalry began, Iowa versus Mizzou would become a general athletics rivalry, leading to generating more fandom and revenue across the board in any sport’s games against the Tigers.
It’s time to stop cautiously whispering about Iowa playing Missouri. A far cry from taboo, the game needs to happen.
— Mason Clarke