Iowa football’s preseason hype video featuring former quarterback Ricky Stanzi garnered one frequent question — where was it filmed?

In the video, Stanzi is seen sitting on a couch in what looks like a Hawkeye fanatic’s man cave. Every inch of the ceiling is lined with vintage Iowa posters, and the quarterback’s highlight reel from his 35 starts under center is playing on the TV behind him.

Iowa’s creative content team, featuring Assistant Athletics Director for Creative Content Caleb Saunders, stumbled upon the room in the northwest ramp of Kinnick Stadium and thought it would be the perfect place to film the former Hawkeye pass-thrower, who ranks second in career victories at Iowa at 26-9.

When Iowa’s creative content team reached out to Stanzi, who now lives in Cleveland, Ohio, he was more than willing to voice the hype video. So, Saunders and his squad flew the former Hawkeye out to his old stomping grounds for a day and executed the film.

“Actually, one of our videographers had the idea for quite some time because [Stanzi] was someone he kind of grew up admiring,” Saunders said. “We reached out to the Director of Football Administration over there and Engagement, and Ricky was kind of number one on their list, and he was number one on our list. So, it was pretty cool.”

This is Saunders’ second year in his position, which was just created last year as Iowa attempted to be more creative rather than newsy on its social media platforms.

With the help of Brandee Britt, director of social media and digital strategy, the Hawkeyes have successfully incorporated this change and built a strong social media presence across all sports with weekly hype videos, clean graphics, and clever puns.

Britt interned with the communications department when she was a student at Iowa and was hired full-time right after graduation as the first, and still the only staff member with social media in their title. Britt wants her and her colleagues to be known as a creative team that is cutting-edge.

“I think for a while we were behind the curve on things, and now we’re setting the standard,” Britt said.

On game days, Britt and Saunders sit in the press box together and pump outposts on social media, including X, Instagram, and Facebook, as the contest goes on.

If there is a scoring or highlight reel play, videographers, and photographers down on the field, including a group of student interns, upload their footage to a shared site so Britt and Saunders can get the content posted. While being the first to report something is a priority for many social media outlets today, Britt and her team strive for quality rather than timeliness.

Britt said she and Saunders go into each game with caption and post ideas but are forced to work on the fly most of the time. The pair praised the student interns for their diligent work and enthusiasm to improve.

“We really couldn’t survive as a department without our student interns,” Britt said.

Britt and Saunders both said the most rewarding part of their job is working and building relationships with student-athletes. With that also comes the hardest part of their job — hate comments toward players on social media.

Saunders and Britt try to ignore the negativity, but that’s not always feasible, especially after a bad loss.

“Fans will be commenting because it ruins their Saturday, but like, our student athletes put in their whole time and effort into a game and you decided to call them something terrible because it ruined your Saturday,” Britt said.  “Sometimes you have to just shut it off. Like just turn the notifications off because you’re constantly seeing the negative. But I will say the positive outweighs the negative on our accounts.”

The Hawkeye football account has garnered over 300,000 followers on X, formerly known as Twitter, and nearly 200,000 on Instagram. For those who can’t be in attendance on Saturdays, the creative content team makes them feel a little closer to the action.

“I think social media is the front door to a university, and not just athletics but your university as a whole. Our athletics accounts are the first thing people see about the University of Iowa,” Britt said. “So, we’re just trying to create that connection all the time and make people feel like they’re a part of something.”