With a 24-team College Football Playoff bracket likely imminent in the near future, HawkeyeRoundtable.com is taking a look at every Iowa football team under Hayden Fry and Kirk Ferentz that would've qualified for the event. 

Each article will be released in chronological article, not based on which teams would've had the best chance to win a national championship, so that means our journey through nearly five decades of Iowa football begins with the Fry era. 

There's so many great teams to choose from, and since we've now made it to the mid-1980s, there's a couple of teams that you missed out on reading. 

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

Next up on the timeline is a team that anyone who claims to follow Iowa football knows about - the 1985 squad. Fry produced many memorable campaigns during his 20 years on the sidelines, but 1985 was probably the most talented team he ever fielded in Iowa City. 

Had a 24-team playoff existed back then, the Hawkeyes may have came out of the bracket as a national champion. 

Let's talk about it. 

I nearly included the 1984 squad in this series, but though it finished 8-4-1 and ranked No. 16 in the final AP poll, there's a few reasons why I left it out. The 55-17 triumph over Texas in the Freedom Bowl was a great ending for the 1984 Hawkeyes, but they wouldn't have been selected by a CFP committee back then because of their winless November against bad teams (tied Wisconsin, lost to Michigan State and Minnesota). 

Any success in 1985 hinged on the return of star quarterback Chuck Long. Long was already a superstar by the close of the 1984 season, but announced during a press conference that he would indeed return to the Hawkeyes for one more season. 

Long's return resulted in Iowa being ranked No. 5 in the preseason polls, and the Hawkeyes stayed in the top 10 for the rest of the season. 

After blasting Iowa State 57-3 in Week 3 (the largest margin of victory in Cy-Hawk history), Iowa was awarded the coveted No. 1 ranking for the first time in 25 years. Though there would be some bumps in the road, namely the thrilling last-second wins over Michigan State and No. 2 Michigan, the Hawkeyes would hold their No. 1 ranking for five weeks. 

Iowa entered November needing to win four more games to complete a perfect season and position itself for the national championship, but it wasn't meant to be. Ohio State ended the Hawkeyes' perfect season with a win in rain-soaked Columbus on Nov. 2, but Iowa still claimed the outright Big Ten title for the fourth (and most recent) time. 

Sitting at 10-1 overall and No. 4 in the nation, the Hawkeyes had a chance to possibly vault up to a national championship if they defeated Pac-10 champ UCLA in the 1986 Rose Bowl and got some help in the other major bowl games. 

But Iowa couldn't hold up its end of the bargain. The Bruins pulled ahead by two touchdowns in the second quarter and never looked back to secure a 45-28 upset victory. 

The Hawkeyes finished the year 10-2 overall and dropped to 10th in the final polls. 

NOTE: Remember, the AP poll selected only the top 20 teams back in 1985, so this bracket will only include 20 teams. 

Iowa finished fourth in the final pre-bowl game AP poll, so that means it would've received a first round bye. The first matchup would be ironically against No. 13 UCLA or No. 20 Maryland, who would be the Hawkeyes' conference rivals over three decades later. 

Since Iowa was handled by UCLA on the real field back then, it's hard to declare that it would advance out of the first round, but should the Hawkeyes advance here, they would probably be looking at a rematch against Michigan. 

Though this is only a hypothetical bracket, you can already sense how fun a playoff format would've been back then. In the end, Oklahoma was crowned national champion for the third and final time under Barry Switzer with an Orange Bowl triumph over top-ranked Penn State. 

1985 Iowa could've done some serious damage in a 20-team field, though. 

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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]