Why Not Iowa?

From Sioux City to Davenport, across bent grass and vast expanses, the prevailing wind here blows understatement:

* Keep expectations slightly lower than the corn.

* Work hard but don’t get worked up.

* Don’t run your mouth -- if you build it, remember from the movie, they will come.

* And never take anything for granted -- especially in football.

In 1924, Iowa thought it had landed the rainmaker of coaches until news leaked of the secret negotiations.

The offended coach fired off a letter to the Iowa president, concluding “ ... whole matter is now closed. Good luck.”

Knute Rockne stayed at Notre Dame.

Instead of taking several trips to Bountiful, Iowa settled comfortably into its own skin and, perhaps not shockingly, still seeks its first national football title since taking up the sport in 1892.

The school has produced one Heisman Trophy winner, Nile Kinnick in 1939, and has made only occasional forays to the front, finishing No. 2 in both wire service polls in 1958 and, more recently, advancing to three Rose Bowls under Hayden Fry.

It was long ago conceded that Iowa did not have the player population base to compete with Michigan and Ohio State in the Big Ten Conference -- yet it grew to relish its scrap-dog role.

“It’s a cultural thing,” Bob Rasley, a 1955 Iowa grad, says as he collects the $4 entrance fee at the University of Iowa Hall of Fame. “Iowans enjoy kicking their toes in the dirt and saying, ‘Aw shucks, guys,’ and then they go kick your ....”

Given this backdrop, it’s almost frightening what people are now kicking around.

After going 31-7 the last three seasons -- the most successful stretch in school history -- Iowa is ready for its college football close-up.

Led by seventh-year Coach Kirk Ferentz, the Hawkeyes have become, arguably, the Big Ten’s model franchise and -- dare we suggest? -- a perennial power.

Or, maybe you haven’t heard that only four schools have finished ranked in the top 10 each of the last three seasons: USC, Oklahoma, Georgia and ... Iowa.

To cap the last two seasons, Iowa defeated two Southeastern Conference forces, Florida in the 2004 Outback Bowl and defending bowl championship series champion Louisiana State in last year’s Capital One Bowl.

The 30-25 victory over LSU, on Drew Tate’s miracle touchdown pass to Warren Holloway on the last play, has become perhaps the signature play in Iowa sports history and is detailed, frame-by-frame, in an outrageously huge photograph that takes up most of a wall in the Hawkeye football offices -- you should see the shocked expression on the face of one LSU cheerleader.

Iowa has seven starters returning on offense and perhaps the nation’s best linebacker duo in seniors Abdul Hodge and Chad Greenway, but the program has reached the point where depth charts are considered irrelevant.

Did anyone ever care, during Florida State’s heyday, how many starters Bobby Bowden had coming back?

Iowa, under Ferentz, has achieved “pencil-them-in” status.

You get to this rarefied air in part by starting 2-2 last season, having the offensive backfield devastated by injuries, and still finishing 10-2.

After careful study, in fact, there really should be no dispute as to which school should be ranked No. 1 entering the 2005 season.

That school is ...

USC.

(What, you think we’ve lost all our marbles?)

The Trojans are on course, of course, to become the first school to win three consecutive Associated Press national titles.

There’s a battle raging below, though, with eight to 10 teams in the running for the coveted No. 2 spot in the BCS standings.

We ask: Why not Iowa?

Iowa has Tate, a returning quarterback on the rise in a year when many of the top teams from last year -- Miami, Utah, Auburn, Florida State, Oklahoma, Georgia, California -- are breaking in new passers.

Why not dream?

An Iowa-USC Rose Bowl would not only offer a traditional Pac-10/Big Ten affair in Pasadena (remember those grand-daddy days?), it would be played for the BCS national championship in a matchup not even the Orange Bowl could steal.

USC vs. Iowa might spark a series of galas, mixers and reunions, given that Iowans, by the tens of thousands, have been moving here for more than a century, once holding annual picnics in Long Beach (“Iowa by the Sea”).

When Iowa arrived here for the 1957 Rose Bowl, 11,000 fans greeted the team at Burbank.

“People think we export corn,” Rasley, the Iowa Hall of Fame worker, joked. “We export people to California.”

Iowa’s “aw-shucks” mentality, though, is headed for the thresher.

Ted Habte-Gabr, director of Iowa’s Los Angeles booster club, says Iowans are generally reluctant to embrace heightened expectations.

“Don’t brag or boast, good things come to those who wait, it’s that kind of mind-set,” Habte-Gabr says of Iowa thinking.

This, however, did not stop Habte-Gabr from placing a $20 bet at Caesars Palace on Iowa to win the national title, at 15-to-1 odds.

“I’m one of these people that usually can contain my excitement,” says Habte-Gabr, a business developer. “I’m a hard-to-read guy, but on this one, I’m not messing around. The road to the national championship is going through Iowa City and Los Angeles.”

*

The man responsible for the frenzy is Ferentz, who has reconstructed Iowa the way you build a wall -- brick by brick.

His flow chart has been so inconspicuous you wonder how he ascended to such heights.

Played football at Connecticut?

Defensive coordinator and offensive line coach at Worcester Academy?

Cut head-coaching teeth at the University of Maine?

Although he was born in Michigan, Ferentz says he embodies the Iowa football philosophy.

“When you’re in a place like Iowa, and I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way, none of us were the first choice to the prom,” Ferentz says.

Although this is his second go-round at Iowa -- he spent nine years as an Iowa assistant in the 1980s -- Ferentz was not the first choice to succeed Fry.

An NFL assistant with the Baltimore Ravens at the time, Ferentz watched Fry’s 1998 retirement news conference on cable but did not connect the career dots.

“I never really mapped out a plan,” he says, “I never had a vision.”

Fry’s successor, everyone assumed, was going to be Bob Stoops, a former Iowa player and assistant who was expected to rescue his alma mater from the clutches of a downturn.

For reasons still mysterious, it didn’t happen, and Stoops remains happily entrenched at Oklahoma.

Iowa turned to Ferentz, practically unknown outside inner circles.

When Ferentz debuted at 1-10 in 1999, well, things didn’t look so rosy.

Ferentz, though, had faith that Iowans were going to allow him time to get things right. He did not seek a quick fix by recruiting masses of junior college players.

“People here are pretty stable,” Ferentz says, “so we felt we had an opportunity to kind of climb the ladder.”

Those close to Ferentz say he never wavered when things were bleak.

“He knew what he wanted, and how he wanted to do it,” defensive coordinator Norm Parker says. “He stayed on the path and did not jump from one thing to another.”

Iowa rebuilt from the inside out, molding players who had been passed over by other big-time programs.

Robert Gallery, an offensive tackle from Masonville, who developed into an Outland Trophy winner and first-round pick of the Oakland Raiders, checked quietly into Iowa City at 235 pounds.

On the first day of spring practice, Gallery ran right on a play designed to go left, but, as Ferentz says, “two years later it was a different story.”

Dallas Clark of Livermore, former All-American tight end, now with the Indianapolis Colts?

He was a walk-on linebacker with a knack for special teams but no clue on defense.

Ferentz moved Clark to tight end.

“My sister could have figured that one out,” Ferentz says.

Mike Elgin, a junior center from Bankston, continues the parade of homegrown pride.

“I think the work ethic of this team is a reflection of the general work ethic of citizens of this state, much like the farmers of this state,” Elgin says.

Iowa has gone from 1-10 to 3-9 to 7-5 to three consecutive seasons with at least 10 wins.

While the hype intensifies, Ferentz still views Iowa through a small-market prism. Thirty-one victories in three years have translated to increased national acclaim and a recent top-notch recruiting class, yet Ferentz insists Iowa will never be able to match, in terms of talent, the nation’s traditional powers.

He almost likes it better that way.

Almost.

“We wouldn’t’ mind trying it,” Ferentz jokes of working with a No. 1 recruiting class. “It would be nice if they wanted to come.... If we had 10 million people in our state, it would be interesting. We’d be Ohio State.

“But it’s fun, yeah, I think that [underdog role] gives us a little pep in our step.”

You might say the only thing that could stop Iowa now would be Ferentz’s returning to the NFL or jumping to another high-profile collegiate program -- Joe Paterno can’t coach Penn State forever, right?

Ferentz, though, doesn’t come across as the cut-and-run type and is signed at Iowa through the 2012 season. He insists he is not dying to leave Iowa City for any job, claiming, “If I was, I’d be gone already.”

In a profession where you keep the professional movers on speed dial, Ferentz relishes the prospect of all five of his children graduating from the same high school, and as it stands, it’s three kids down, two to go.

His son, Brian, is a starting guard for the Hawkeyes.

“I like this state,” Ferentz says. “Education is important in this state. How you conduct yourself is important in this state. It’s a premium place.... We’re goofy enough to think that maybe we can keep having some success too.”

Rose Bowl or bust?

“The talk about a national title is just talk,” Elgin, the center, says. “And talking will not win any games.”

After last year’s 2-2 stutter step, Ferentz almost cheerfully recites, some fans wondered if Iowa was capable of winning another game.

This fall, Iowa needs to comb cornfields for a running back and retool its defensive line.

Ferentz points to potential land mines on the 2005 schedule: Sept. 10 at rival Iowa State, a Sept. 24 showdown at Ohio State, Michigan in the house Oct. 22.

“We’re ziggin’ and zaggin’ while other teams are kind of cruising,” he says. “Believe me, we’re not backing down. I’m not worried about this year. We’re looking forward to it. But I guess my point is: We’re not an elite team; we’re not even close.”

Funny, but there’s at least one $20 betting slip from Caesars Palace suggesting otherwise.