10 Power 5 National Championship dark horse contenders
By John Buhler
If you didn’t hear it here first, listen anyway: The 2015 Big 10 West Champion Iowa Hawkeyes were no fluke. Kirk Ferentz’s squad went 12-2 en route to a Big 10 Championship showdown with the Michigan State Spartans, a brutal defensive battle in which the Hawkeyes came up just short. A little over a month later, Iowa was eviscerated in the Rose Bowl by Pac-12 Champion Stanford, ending what had been, to that point, a borderline Cinderella season for a program long mired in mediocrity.
Along with North Carolina in the ACC, Iowa is one of two teams in the Power 5 that are favored to win their divisions this fall, but still feel very much like dark horses to play in — let alone win — the College Football Playoff.
There are three things that make the Hawkeyes the scariest dark horse National Championship contender in the Power 5 this fall:
1.) Once again, the Hawkeyes play an absurdly easy schedule in 2016 and are very likely to go 11-1 or better this fall.
2.) The team is returning an impressive core of top talent.
3.) Iowa has a potential superstar in corner Desmond King, as well as a legitimate pro prospect at quarterback in C.J. Beathard.
Iowa should be favored by two scores in every game it plays before Nov. 12, when the Hawkeyes host Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan Wolverines at Kinnick Stadium. If Iowa gets off to a 9-0 start and Michigan improves as expected in year two under Harbaugh, this could be one of the five biggest games during the 2016 NCAA regular season.
Michigan would be a slight favorite, but Iowa as a home underdog with a crazy Iowa City crowd on its side might be enough to dash the Wolverines’ College Football Playoff hopes — and elevate the Hawkeyes’ in the process.
If a 12-0 Iowa meets either Michigan State or Ohio State in Indianapolis for the 2016 Big 10 Championship Game, the Hawkeyes will have the confidence — and the experience — needed to knock off their more high-profile foe.
Admittedly, beating Ohio State at a neutral site is highly unlikely, even for one of the best Iowa teams ever. Should they draw Michigan State, however, the Hawkeyes will be more than ready to avenge their crushing 2015 Championship Game loss to the Spartans.
A 13-0 Iowa team with big wins over Michigan and Michigan State/Ohio State would merit, at the very worst, a No. 2 seed in the College Football Playoff. From there, Iowa would have as good a chance as anyone to shock the word, and bring home the school’s first undisputed football title since 1958.