‘We understand the love we get from the media’: Hawkeyes embrace underdog mentality ahead of title game
William Clark
Updated on March 14, 2026
The Iowa Hawkeyes come into the Big Ten championship game against Michigan as 23-point underdogs. The Wolverines are fresh off a third consecutive win over Ohio State and back-to-back undefeated regular seasons. They’ve also won the last two Big Ten title games, including a 42-3 thumping of Iowa in 2021.
During the Ohio State-Michigan broadcast, color commentator Joel Klatt referred to Iowa as the “little engine that could.” The Hawkeyes admitted they watched the game to see who their opponent would be, and took notice of Klatt’s comment.
“For Joel Klatt to say that we’re ‘the little engine that could,’ I think is great, I love that,” Mason Richman said. “I’m definitely going to be using that one as a little chip on our shoulder. We’ve been talking about being a train all year and how we’ve just been chugging along on our way to Indy.”
“We understand that these guys are pretty good — probably the best we’re going to face this year. We’re going to work hard and prepare this week and go out there and give them an Iowa Hawkeye football game.”
“We’re Iowa. So we understand the type of love we get from the media,” Jay Higgins said. “I don’t think that’s a surprise. I mean, we were expected to lose last week as well. If we listen to what people are going to say about the games before they actually happened, there’d be no point of going out there and compete.”
“We love that to be honest,” Joe Evans said. “Everybody in the facility loves that, and we love that narrative of being the underdog. I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t think anybody thought we were going to be in the situation after we lost 31-0 over at Penn State.”
“I said that we still have all of our goals ahead of us. We can still win the Big Ten championship and I know a lot of people kind of laughed at that. So, we love being the underdog.”
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