In a little bit of a surprising turn of events, the Iowa Hawkeyes were left out of a post-spring top 25 ranking. The exclusion comes at the hands of CBS Sports’ Dennis Dodd who published his rankings once spring games concluded.
Dodd’s lists begin with No. 1 Alabama, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Georgia, and No. 4 Oklahoma. The beginning of the list does not raise any eyebrows as those programs have come to consistently find themselves in the College Football Playoff and all but Oklahoma have hoisted the national championship trophy at least once in the CFP era.
CBS Sports excluding the Hawkeyes goes off the beaten path we’ve seen from other outlets including Iowa in their rankings. With the amount of returning production for Iowa, standing on the outside looking in does feel a little bit odd. It even feels a rather eccentric decision to believe there are 25 other teams in the country that are better than the Iowa Hawkeyes.
Hawkeyes Wire has already discussed a handful of media outlets and their rankings previously. Some of these have even been rather kind to the Hawkeyes. USA TODAY Sports’ Erick Smith slotted Iowa all the way up at No. 11 in the country for his rankings. In 247Sports’ rankings, the Hawkeyes saw a bit of a slide but still found their name at No. 23.
All of this said, Dodd’s list appears to be pretty “chalky” some may say. His rankings of him are loaded with the standard power program names even though they have underperformed relative to the Hawkeyes.
Some teams included above Iowa are questionable. Dodd ranks five teams with new head coaches whereas Iowa has been built as the model of consistency under head football coach Kirk Ferentz. There is the duo of perennial underwhelming Texas and Texas A&M once again tricking the nation into believing they may actually do something. There are three non-Power Five schools, No. 22 BYU, No. 23 Houston and No. 25 Cincinnati rounding out the rankings.
Leaving the most recent Big Ten West champions out of a top 25 rankings is a precarious decision with the amount of experience coming back this fall. Time will tell how 2022 will play out, but whether or not the Iowa Hawkeyes finish in the top 25 will be worth watching for fans.
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