Saturday was supposed to be the kickoff of another season of Iowa football.

Needless to say, many of us are feeling the pain of not having a Hawkeye game to watch on TV or attend in-person. No tailgating. No pregame rituals. No swarm. No wave at the end of the first quarter. No beer song celebration at the end of the game. Nothing.

Instead we are going to try and stroll down memory lane every Saturday looking back at Iowa football games that took places on this date.

As luck would have it, the first game that was initially scheduled to open the 2020 season was supposed to be against the school that Iowa played in 2009 when the Hawkeyes won in the most unique fashion, maybe ever.

It’s interesting to look back at Iowa football history and find out that the Hawkeyes first played a game in the month of September in 1903 and that was on the 27th when they beat Cornell, 6-0.

Starting in 1971 when the college football schedule expanded to include an 11th game, that’s when you started to see more consistent middle of September contests for the Hawkeyes. For example, in 1971, Iowa lost to Ohio State, 52-21 on September 11th. The first time that Iowa play a single digit date in September was Hayden Fry’s first game in 1979 against Indiana and the first time the Hawkeyes played a game in August was the Kickoff Classic in New Jersey to start the 1987 season.

The Hawkeyes have played on September 5th three times in school history and they are 3-0.

The first time that Iowa played on September 5th was in Fry’s last season as the head coach in 1998. That year, the Hawkeyes hosted Central Michigan and won 38-0. The historical significance of the win was that Kahlil Hill returned a punt and kickoff for a touchdowns. That was the first time it happened in school history. Ladell Betts also scored a pair of touchdowns in the win while rushing for 64 yards.

Iowa ended up with 274 yards in total offense while limiting Central Michigan to just 192 total yards. An ugly stat that probably told us that this was going to a rough year for the Hawkeyes, even though Iowa cruised to a victory, they allowed 7 sacks.

Before we get to the feature game, Iowa started their historic 2015 season with a 31-14 victory over Illinois State. The final score was a little misleading because the Hawkeyes were ahead 31-0 in the middle of the fourth quarter before they gave up a pair of scores.

LeShun Daniels led the way with 123 yards on the ground and C.J. Beathard threw for 211 yards and one score. Drew Ott was the top performer on defense with a pair of sacks and Cole Fisher, making his first start, had a team high 8 tackles. Overall, Iowa’s defense has 10 tackles for loss and held the Redbirds to 36 yards of total offense in the first half.

The most memorable game on this date has to be the 2009 win over Northern Iowa.

Honestly, it’s one of the most memorable games of the Ferentz era because of the wild ending and let’s say up front, after Iowa held on for the 17-16 victory, no one saw this Hawkeye team making it to the Orange Bowl.

Let’s start at the beginning. I remember talking to long time UNI radio play by play man Gary Rima the week of the game and he felt that the Panthers would give Iowa a real test. Northern Iowa had beaten Iowa State in 2007, so they had shown they could beat a power five team.

At the half, UNI lead the Hawkeyes, 10-3. Both teams traded field goals in the first quarter and then Panther quarterback Pat Grace found Ryan Mahaffey for a 14 yard score with just under six minutes left in the half. In the first half, UNI outgained Iowa 152-104 in the first half.

In the second half, Iowa kicked off and created a turnover on the return and was in business inside the 30 yard line. On the second play of the drive, Paki O’Meara fumbled and the Panthers hit a 50 yard pass and settled for a field goal to go up 13-3.

At that moment, even though there was a lot of time left in the game, Iowa felt like they were officially in for a four quarter battle. Thankfully, Iowa’s offense woke up from their slumber with Ricky Stanzi connecting on four straight passes to move into the red zone. Then Adam Robinson rushed for an 11 yard touchdown to make the score 13-10.

The two teams traded several short drives before Iowa took over with 1:34 left in the third quarter and started a drive from their own 27. Stanzi hit Trey Stross for a 29 yard gain and headed into the fourth quarter, Iowa was in business at the UNI 45.

Iowa’s first play of the fourth quarter was a 22 yard completion to Derrell Johnson-Koulianos and then 7 yards to Tony Moeaki and the Hawkeyes were in the red zone. Two plays later, Stanzi hit Moeaki for a 6 yard touchdown to take the lead, 17-13 with 13:18 left in the game.

After stopping the Panthers on their next drive, Iowa was looking to put the game away. They drove down to the UNI 32 yard line and was stuffed on third and fourth down. The Panthers took over and drove down the field, but the Iowa defense stuffed them in the red zone to hold UNI to a field goal. With just under 4:30 left, Iowa held a 17-16 lead.

Some strange playcalling for Iowa in the next drive where the Hawkeyes threw on four of the five plays. The Hawkeyes made it out to close to midfield and after a Ryan Donahue punt, the Panthers started their final drive at their own 8 yard line with 2:14 left in the game.

Grace hit three straight passes to get out to the 38 yard line and UNI was in business with 1:13 left in the game. The big play on the drive was a 3rd and 8 pass from Grace to D.J. Hord for 16 yards that put the Panthers in field goal range at the Iowa 35. The Panthers ended up at the Iowa 23 to set up a 40 yard field goal from Bill Hallgren, who had hit twice from 39 yards out earlier in the game.

The long arm of Broderick Binns got a paw on the field goal attempt and Iowa wins, right?

Well, not so fast. The ball ended up being behind the line of scrimmage and Iowa essentially ran away from the ball and since it was first down, the Panthers got another crack, again from 40 yards out.

Once again, it was blocked. This time by Jeremiah Hunter. And this time, Pat Angerer fell on the ball to secure the victory.

Crazy game. Never seen an ending like that before and probably never will again.