The Iowa Hawkeyes 2026 schedule is one that features some extremely intriguing matchups early in the year and some stretches of games that will show who this team truly is very early on. That said, we have found out that the names of teams can be much different than the on-field product, especially in today’s era of college football.
In classic Kirk Ferentz fashion, he dismissed any idea of looking too far ahead and remains focused on Iowa being the best it can be and letting things work themselves out.
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“Full disclosure, I didn’t know who we were playing because I really don’t care. I figured we were going to be playing good teams. That’s one thing about being in our conference.
“Whenever it came out, I did look at it. It is what it is. I mean, couple things again, nobody knows — all of the odds are all three of those teams will be pretty good teams when we are playing them. But nobody knows who is going to be what.
“I guess, to me, the moral of the story, if I’ve learned one thing, it’s more important to worry about us. So when we do get there, whatever part of the season that is, we’re going to be ready to play and take on a good opponent.
“One thing for sure, in our conference you’re going to play good teams. So you know that’s happening. And that’s week in, week out.
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“You think about last year, we played at a high level, from my vantage point. But the next to last one was really tough out there, too. I mean, that could have gone either way.
“So just the better everybody understands it, the better we’ll be as a football team. It’s been the nature of coaching here. It’s like every week, you’ve got to be ready to go.
“The best way to be ready in the fall is for us being what we do and what we should do right now, doing as well as we can, knowing that we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. Hopefully everybody understands that. At the same time, let’s not put any ceilings on ourselves either. Let’s just try to get as good as we can and see where we can go,” Ferentz said about what lies ahead on the Hawkeyes’ 2026 schedule.
Iowa begins with home games against Northern Illinois, Iowa State, and Northern Iowa, which is a stretch that the Hawkeyes must navigate undefeated, as a stretch of games after that features a trip to Michigan, back home versus Ohio State, and out West against Washington.
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The full Iowa football 2026 schedule is below:
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Saturday, September 5: Northern Illinois
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Saturday, September 19: Northern Iowa
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Saturday, September 26: at Michigan
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Saturday, October 3: Ohio State
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Saturday, October 10: at Washington
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Saturday, October 17: Bye
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Saturday, October 24: at Minnesota
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Saturday, October 31: Wisconsin
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Saturday, November 7: at Northwestern
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Saturday, November 14: Purdue
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Saturday, November 21: at Illinois
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Friday, November 27: Nebraska
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This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire : Kirk Ferentz comments on 2026 Iowa football schedule
