UNI embraces hype and challenges

CEDAR FALLS — Northern Iowa's football team has a mental approach for competing against its two big brothers in Iowa, and it isn't by telling itself it's just another game.

'First of all, you have to embrace the hype,' UNI Coach Mark Farley said here Monday, 'because there is hype to this.'

Seventy Panther players are Iowans. Try telling them this is just another game.

'It's a bunch of young men that get an opportunity to play at Kinnick,' Farley said. 'So you have to embrace that moment for them. It's a neat experience for them, a neat opportunity.'

But it's more than that. It's a chance to get the nation to marvel at you if you pull off the upset. Like the Panthers came oh-so-close to doing in Kinnick five years ago before falling, 17-16.

That will forever be remembered for Iowa blocking two UNI field goal tries in the game's last seven seconds.

'It took a miracle, not good fortune, but basically a miracle for us to win,' Iowa Coach Kirk Ferentz said Tuesday.

The Panthers opened at Iowa State in 2011 and lost by just 20-19. They opened at Wisconsin in 2012 and lost by just 26-21 to a team that finished the season in the Rose Bowl. They opened at Iowa State last year and posted a 28-20 win.

'It doesn't seem to bother them who they're playing or where they're playing. They play good football, and that's something UNI has done traditionally very well,' Ferentz said.

For as much as Iowa can profess respect and awareness about the Panthers, they can't fully know how deeply meaningful Saturday's game is to the visitors. Winning it would be the school's football equivalent of its NCAA men's basketball tournament victory over Kansas in 2010.

What's Appalachian State better known for, winning three straight national championships in the mid-2000s or winning at Michigan in 2007? What got North Dakota State more acclaim last year, capturing its third-straight FCS title or opening the season by upsetting Kansas State?

Farley craves a national-title much more than defeating Iowa. But he knows what would come with a win Saturday.

'Of course it would mean a ton,' he said. 'This is one of those hurdles that we haven't conquered.

'Just like anything, when you're trying to do something that's never been done you get in your own way sometimes. Much like those two blocked kicks. We got in our own way that day.'

But based on the Panthers' track record, it's a given that they'll push back against the Hawkeyes Saturday. Embracing the hype, as Farley calls it, is one thing. Being prepared and confident has separated UNI from most of its FCS brothers when it comes to facing FBS teams.

'We really just have to take a little bit of edge off it for them and get them in tune that we have to line up and win that line of scrimmage,' Farley said. 'It's going to come down to a simple plan by us just like it's a simple plan for them. If we try to out-scheme them, we're not going to win the football game.

'We're going to have to outplay the person across from us. It's going to take 11 guys being able to win that battle. That's what makes it difficult, but that's what makes it exciting, too.'

When Saturday's game is over, Farley said, he said he hopes his team was equal to Iowa in 'talent, aggression and toughness.

'If we can show that with how we play, then we've had a good day and hopefully the score will show signs of that.'

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