With the addition of Rutgers and Maryland to the Big Ten, the conference has announced that it will be moving to a nine-game league schedule each season. The conference will also go away from the practice of scheduling FCS teams in their non-conference schedules.
That means that any future meetings between UNI and Iowa are now in jeopardy. UNI football coach Mark Farley says that’s disappointing.
“That was a great stage and it was a great environment and a great opportunity. I understand the reasoning, but it is disappointing for the fact of going forward in that phase,” Farley says. “Because even the Wisconsin game was a great experience for our players and another opportunity that we went toe-to-toe, but those are decisions that are made above us. It’s too bad for some of the players that will come through in the future that won’t get to experience that.’
UNI did not face the Hawkeyes for 81 years before the series resumed in 1995. Farley says that the last two times the Panthers visited Kinnick Stadium were a pair of very competitive games.
Farley says it took a long time to get the series going. “Throughout the years there’s been some games that got away, but more recently there’s been some games that we had opportunities to win,” Farley says.
The Panthers are currently scheduled to visit Iowa in 2014 and 2018.
By Jesse Gavin KCNZ Cedar Falls