.png)
German (DE) 
English (US) 
Spanish (ES) 
French (FR) 
Hindi (IN) 
Italian (IT) 
Russian (RU) 
1 hour ago
1
The Iowa Hawkeyes are poised to open their 2025 college football season on Saturday as they play host to the UAlbany Great Danes inside Kinnick Stadium. While the Hawkeyes have tended to be pretty light on scheduling in the non-conference due to their standing date with the Iowa State Cyclones, this year’s week one matchup is up there in terms of cupcakes to kick off the season.
According to FanDuel Sportsbook, the Hawkeyes are favored by 38.5 points over the Danes on Saturday. That’s up from an opening line of 37.5 points while the over/under has climbed from 48.5 to 50.5 total points.
That spread is the biggest Iowa has had for a game in nearly a decade.
While it may seem wild to envision the Hawkeyes covering such a big number, it’s worth remembering how they started the 2024 season. With Cade McNamara under center and hopes climbing following his pre-season injury the year before, Iowa came out and throttled Illinois State 40-0. McNamara threw for 251 yards and three TDs with freshman Reece Vander Zee bursting onto the scene for 5 catches, 66 yards and a pair of TDs. Kaleb Johnson’s run to an All-American season started with 11 carries for 119 yards and 2 TDs as well.
It was a good day.
But it wasn’t necessarily a harbinger of what was to come. The 251 yards passing from McNamara was the most from any Iowa QB all season and by a wide margin. RVZ went down to injury a few weeks later and the Hawkeyes found their identity on offense behind Kaleb Johnson and almost exclusively Kaleb Johnson.
Now, entering week one in 2025, the QB room is completely turned over and Johnson is wearing a different set of black and gold.
This is year two of the Tim Lester experience and while we got word earlier this week that Reece Vander Zee is again out with injury (this time a stress fracture in his foot that will sideline him for 5-6 weeks), the fanbase seems largely positive about the offense under new QB Mark Gronowski. When we ran our pre-season poll, the community on average was calling for a 9-3 season in 2025.
Nobody expects the Hawkeyes to lose in Saturday’s opener.
It is notable, though, that a solid 55% of Iowa fans are taking the Hawkeyes to win by more than the 37.5-point spread they opened up at over at FanDuel.
By their very nature, point spreads are designed to get half the betting community to take each side so 55% doesn’t seem like a huge percentage of a particular fanbase to take either side. But this is Iowa we’re talking about and Hawkeye fans almost by nature are more pessimistic. If we were talking about Nebraska, sure, we would expect something like 90% of the fans to be hammering the points, betting the over on season long win totals and putting their IRAs into the Huskers to win the national championship.
We are not Nebraska fans. We are realistic, pragmatic and oftentimes downright pessimistic. The other shoe has almost always dropped.
And so being over 50% on such a big spread does seem just a bit surprising in week one with so many unknowns. Here’s hoping this isn’t the first of many disappointments in the 2025 season.
Iowa and Albany are set to kick off at 5:10pm CT inside Kinnick Stadium. This week’s game will be broadcast on FS1. For those with YouTube TV, thankfully, FOX and YTV have come to an agreement to continue their partnership so there will be no week one TV interruptions.
Comments