Welcome back to our countdown to the 2026 Iowa football season! 

From now until the Hawkeyes walk out of the Kinnick Stadium tunnel to "Back in Black" to take on Northern Illinois on Sept. 5, HawkeyeRoundtable.com will have a daily countdown article posted on the website each morning. 

Many of the articles will feature a player wearing the respective jersey number for that day (No. 99 is live), but not every number is currently issued to a member of the Hawkeye football team. 

When those cases arise, we'll fill the space will opinions, historical pieces, and whatever Iowa news could be trending at the time. 

Today is your lucky day. Because no Iowa player dons No. 98, we're combing both opinion and historical angles in this piece. 

What is the piece about you may ask? Well today, we're talking about one of the Hawkeyes' three color-themed games on the home football schedule - the Gold Out Game. 

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Few programs do better at properly scheming color games than Iowa. The Black and Gold Spirit Game is always executed to perfection each year, as is the annual Black Out late in the season. 

The Gold Out game is also aesthetically pleasing, but each year, Iowa fans seem to have one problem with it - it's always held during a non-important game. 

Those reactions returned this year after the Hawkeyes announced their Gold Out game would take place in the season opener against lowly Northern Illinois on Sept. 5 (3:15, BTN). The Gold Out will still look great in the Iowa sunshine, but it's surprising to see the Hawkeyes waste a color game on an inferior opponent. 

This isn't a one-off thing, either. Since 2010, Iowa has coordinated a Gold Out game against a Power Four opponent only twice - Pittsburgh in 2011 and Iowa State in 2014. There's a possibility the Hawkeyes could've had another one mixed in there due to cloudy early 2010s records, but the point still stands. 

While the Black and Gold Spirit Game (Ohio State this season) and Black Out (Wisconsin this year) contests are usually played against a major conference rival, that's just never the case in the Gold Out. 

It's possible that Iowa wants a guaranteed victory in one of its three color-themed games, but it really doesn't make sense considering the matchup that started it all. 

For the historical side of this, we're flipping the dial 20 years back to 2006. On Sept. 30, 13th-ranked Iowa hosted No. 1 Ohio State for a marquee early-season Big Ten clash. ESPN's College GameDay visited Iowa City for the second (and most recent) time, drawing more attention to the matchup. 

Iowa encouraged everyone in attendance that night to wear gold, and boy did the fans deliver. A then-record crowd of 70,585 fans packed inside Kinnick Stadium, and ESPN's opening aerial shot of Kinnick was narrated perfectly by legendary broadcaster Brent Musburger. 

The Hawkeyes were beaten soundly by the Buckeyes, which probably didn't help the chances of seeing the Gold Out game being played against higher-profile opponents. 

But regardless of what has happened in the past, Iowa should still do its Gold Out game against a marquee team. There's been plenty of opportunities in previous years (Iowa State this season, Indiana in 2025), but the Hawkeyes have essentially locked the Gold Out during the non-conference. 

Maybe Iowa has a good reason for doing so, but it's time to have every color game be played against a formidable opponent. 

Looking for some cool Hawkeye swag to wear during the summer months? Look no further! HawkeyeRoundtable.com will be giving away prizes to lucky members throughout the summer and all you have to enter is follow these very easy and quick (under a minute) instructions to join. 

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HawkeyeRoundtable publisher Brad Schultz has covered the Iowa Hawkeyes since 2023. To send him story ideas, scoops, or criticize his writing, reach him at [email protected]