With a 24-team College Football Playoff seemingly imminent in the near future, we're taking a look at every Iowa football team under Hayden Fry and Kirk Ferentz that would've qualified for a 24-team bracket should it have existed. 

Articles will be released in chronological order, not in order of final ranking. So if you're an older Hawkeye fan, that means you remember the magical season that arrived before the one we're discussing today - 1983. 

READ MORE: Iowa Football Squads That Would've Made a 24-Team Playoff: 1981 

While 1981 was the first memorable team to appear in Fry's legendary tenure, one could make a pretty could argument that Iowa's teams in the mid-1980s were Fry's best. 

One of those strong squads was the 1983 team. This group is now slightly overshadowed due to the magical events that would occur two years later, but had the 24-team format existed back then, it's possible the 1983 team could've made serious noise. 

Let's get into it. 

Iowa matched its 8-4 record from 1981 in 1982, but a weak Big Ten (only Ohio State finished ranked in the final AP Poll) probably doesn't convince the committee to include the Hawkeyes in the field of 24. 

Despite the somewhat disappointing season, Iowa had high expectations in 1983. Chuck Long returned for his second season as the Hawkeyes' starting quarterback, which was enough to earn Iowa a preseason AP ranking of No. 16. 

The season immediately began on a high note with a 51-10 drubbing of rival Iowa State in Ames, and a thrilling 20-14 victory over No. 3 Ohio State two weeks later vaulted the Hawkeyes up to No. 4 in the polls. 

Iowa continued to dominate in Big Ten play, but needed to cross two hurdles to have a shot at the Rose Bowl - Ohio State and Michigan. The Hawkeyes crossed the Buckeyes off the list with the aforementioned triumph at Kinnick Stadium, but no one expected a surprise team to crash the Big Ten party in 1983. 

That surprise team was Illinois, which bested Iowa in shutout fashion, 33-0, just one week after the Hawkeyes' win over Ohio State. Easy wins over Northwestern and Purdue followed, but Iowa's conference title hopes were severely damaged when Michigan survived a furious Hawkeye rally by nailing a game-winning field goal in the final seconds. 

Iowa had little trouble navigating through the rest of its slate, but the Michigan and Illinois losses would ultimately keep it from the Rose Bowl in 1983. Illinois would earn the ticket to Pasadena after compiling a perfect 9-0 mark in league play, while the No. 10 Hawks were sent to Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl. 

Iowa was matched up against No. 11 Florida, but the Gator defense overwhelmed the Hawkeyes en route to a 14-6 triumph. An up-and-coming sportscaster named Al Michaels was the play-by-play man for ABC that day.

NOTE: The AP Poll featured only 20 teams in 1983, so this is only a 20-team bracket. 

Based on the pre-bowl game rankings, Iowa's reward for securing the No. 10 seed would've been a first round bye and a date with No. 7 Georgia in the second round. The Bulldogs were just three years removed from a national championship at this point, so this would've been a tough battle for the Hawkeyes. 

A likely matchup with unbeaten Texas, who Georgia would beat in the Cotton Bowl Classic, would've been another difficult test for Iowa. 

The Miami Hurricanes would be crowned national champions in 1983 after a memorable upset of top-ranked Nebraska in the Orange Bowl, but would a 24-team (or 20 in this case) playoff yielded a different result? 

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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]