For just the sixth-time in school history the Iowa Hawkeyes will play in a New Year’s Day bowl game. The Hawks accepted a bid on Sunday afternoon to play Florida in the Outback Bowl in Tampa.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz says he’s proud of the way the team has progressed over the last five years and says they’ve made great strides in the last two years. He says it’s a great compliment to the players to go to back-to-back bowl games January 1 bowl games. Iowa’s other possibilitites heasding into Sunday were the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio and the Capitol One Bowl in Orlando which selected Purdue to take on Georgia. Ferentz says it was nice to know thaty had three great options, he says it’s nice to go to the Outback Bowl in Florida because they haven’t played there before. He says the fact they’ve gone 23-6 in is something to be proud of for this team. Florida is 8-4 but the Gators made major strides in the second half of the season and handed L-S-U its only loss of the season. He says they’re an excellent football team and have a lot of great players and will present a great challeng.
Iowa and Florida met in the Gator Bowl back in 1983 with the Gators claiming a 14-6 win.