With less than a month until football season starts back up, it’s the perfect time to look back over the Iowa Hawkeyes’ most and least successful Conference Title runs. As much as we’d love for every season to bring a Championship win, we all know this isn’t possible. It’s the lows, not the highs, that prove a real fan’s loyalty. Since 2015, the Hawkeyes have gone from first to fourth before rising back up to second. What are the odds that this year they continue this trend and make it back up to first?

This might be the perfect year to test those odds. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act is unconstitutional, sports betting is finally opening up across the United States. Each state will need to make its own laws on sports betting, but legalization is spreading quickly. If you’re new to the world of betting, consider using a betting guide. A guide like Sidelines provides odds, sports news and links to reputable betting sites. Follow this link to view more.

The Evasheveski years

Out of the nine years that Forest Evasheveski was Head Coach of the Hawkeyes, they were Big 10 Conference Champions three times: 1956, 1958 and 1960. When Evasheveski took the reins in 1952, the Hawkeyes hadn’t won a Big Ten Conference title for 30 years. His energy and bombastic style of coaching helped to rejuvenate the team and inspire the fans again. After four seasons, this aggressive coaching style paid off and the Hawkeyes ended the 1956 season 9-1, including a game against Ohio State that was so exciting that the University of Iowa’s president, Virgil Hancher, had a heart attack watching. 1958 was another great season, ending with an 8-1-1 record. In his final year as coach, Evasheveski again saw his team through to a title win, this one shared with the University of Minnesota.

In 1956 and 1958, Evasheveski also led his team to victory at the Rose Bowl against Oregon State and UC Berkeley, respectively. The Hawkeyes have made it to the Rose Bowl since, but these were their last two wins there. Whether or not they can shake the bad luck in Pasadena that has dogged them since then remains to be seen, but this could be the year.

1971-1973

If the Evasheveski years were a fan’s dream, the Frank Lauterbur years were a nightmare. The 1971 season, Lauterbur’s first season as coach, was expected to be a bit rough as transitional years often are. The 1-10 result confirmed those expectations. It was the 1973 season that was a disastrous shocker. The Hawkeyes lost every single game that season. Such a stunningly bad season couldn’t be blamed on any one party — the players and the coaching staff just hadn’t been able to make it work.

1980

While not a terrible year, 1980 wasn’t a great year, with the Hawkeyes finishing 4th after a 4-7 season. Their game against the Nebraska Huskers though was one of the worst losses in the team’s history. The 57-0 loss came as a shock to both teams as the last time they’d met the score had been a much closer 24-21. Hayden Fry, then in his second year with the Hawkeyes and working to rebuild the team described the loss with the phrase “they picked us like chickens”. The game shook fans, but Fry and his team redeemed themselves the next year with a stunning upset, winning 10-7.

2002 and 2004

In 1999, Kirk Ferentz took over as head coach from Fry and he started his career with a bang. 2002 ended with an 11-2 record, including crushing defeats of Northwestern (62-10) and Utah State (48-7). Dallas Clark played a big role in the team’s success that year and his skills were recognized when he was given the John Mackey Award and chosen as a first-round draft pick by the Indianapolis Colts. In 2004, Ferentz and the team repeated their performance from 2002 and won the Big Ten Conference title again. The Hawkeyes also won the Capital One Bowl against Louisiana State, snatching victory in the final seconds with a 56-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Drew Tate to wide receiver Warren Holloway.

2015

With Ferentz still at the helm, the Hawkeyes flew through the 2015 season, winning all but their final two games. While many of the games were close, their 28-20 win against their rivals Nebraska, who ranked third, had to have been one of the most rewarding. They finished the season at 12-2 and as Division Champions.