Week three of the 2026 season brings the in-state neighbor to Kinnick for Family Weekend, and for the first time since 2001 there will be no Mark Farley on the visiting sideline. UNI is a program in transition: a new(ish) head coach entering year two, a new quarterback with an Iowa recruiting backstory, and a fanbase coming off the roughest season in Cedar Falls in a while.
Series HistoryIowa leads the all-time series 7-0 and every one of those meetings has gone to the Hawkeyes by at least two scores. Except one. The exception is the game everyone in both fanbases still talks about: September 5, 2009, when UNI came within two blocked field goals in the final seven seconds of pulling off the upset at Kinnick. Iowa survived 17-16 and went on to win the Orange Bowl that season.
The 2018 meeting, a 38-14 Iowa win, was the most recent. Eight years is the longest gap between these programs in decades, which is part of why the September date sold out months in advance. As of Monday morning, it’s the third straight Iowa home sellout of 2026, joining the Cy-Hawk game and now the season opener.
The State of UNI FootballThe 2025 Panthers finished 3-9 overall and 1-7 in the Missouri Valley, dead last in the toughest conference in FCS football. Wins came against Butler, Eastern Washington, and Murray State. The losses included a 48-16 trip to top-ranked North Dakota State and a 35-7 home defeat to North Dakota. The season ended with a 35-32 loss to Youngstown State in which UNI’s late comeback fell just short, and that finale matters more than the record suggests, because it was the first extended look at the quarterback who now runs the program.
Context is owed here. This was year one of a full rebuild. Mark Farley retired after the 2024 season, closing a 24-year run as UNI’s head coach, and the program handed the keys to Todd Stepsis, who arrived from Drake with back-to-back Pioneer Football League titles, consecutive FCS playoff berths, and two PFL Coach of the Year awards on his resume. First seasons after two-decade coaching tenures are almost always ugly (boy I hope this isn’t foreshadowing..). Year two is where the direction should start to show.
What UNI Brings to KinnickStepsis settled his biggest question for 2026 early. Jaxon Dailey was named the starting quarterback back in April, an unusually early call the staff made deliberately so he could bank a full offseason of first-team reps. Dailey started UNI’s final four games of 2025 and closed with his best performance: 352 yards and two touchdowns through the air against Youngstown State.
Iowa fans should recognize the name. Dailey is a Southeast Polk product out of Pleasant Hill who drew recruiting attention from Iowa, Iowa State, and Michigan as a three-star prospect. He ultimately began his college career at Arkansas State and transferred to Cedar Falls in 2024.
The rest of the roster carries the usual FCS reality: the portal takes, but it gives a little back too. The Panthers are looking for answers at RB this year after leading rusher Harrison Bey-Buie hit the portal to Chattanooga in the offseason. He rushed for 487 yards and 5 TDs a season ago. That one stings as UNI also lost second-leading rusher Bill Jackson to graduation.
Starting-caliber offensive tackle Gavin Proudfoot also left for Iowa State in January.
Coming the other direction, UNI added a weapon from a bigger in-state schools as Kai Black comes over after three seasons as a reserve tight end at Iowa State. He will certainly have some juice for this matchup.
The Panthers also added FAU transfer RB Xavier Terrell and Ventura College RB Love Adebayo. They’ll hope to fill some of the void left by Bey-Buie.
Perhaps an even bigger impact than the portal was graduation. The 2025 Panthers were led by a group of seniors and those are all clearly gone entering this season. That includes #2 receiver Tysen Kershaw, who had 454 yards and 2 TDs, as well as their three leading tacklers. Of those, UNI lost two starting linebackers in Ryan Crandall and Tucker Langenberg, as well as starting corner Jonathan Cabral-Martin.
The Panthers added help there with South Dakota State LB transfer Andrew Price and CB transfers Jajuan Jackson and Mekhi Toms from Walsh University and Drake respectively.
The Valley coaches picked UNI seventh in the preseason poll, which reads less like disrespect and more like an honest read on a roster still being rebuilt around its quarterback in year two of a new head coach. The one positive worth calling out here is the returning depth at WR. Leading receiver JC Roque (595 yards and 7 TDs on 56 receptions – all team-leading) is back, as is #3 receiver Ayden Price. Pair them with the insertion of the aforementioned Black and Dailey will have options to target against an Iowa defense that is finding itself early in the year.
The Hawkeyes will have two games of tape by kickoff. UNI opens at Eastern Washington on September 5, then hosts Drake — Stepsis’s old program, which is its own strange little revenge subplot — on September 12 before making the trip to Iowa City.
What to Watch ForBy game three, the quarterback question should be answered and the offense should have two games of identity on film. This is the tune-up before the schedule turns violent: at Michigan, then Ohio State at Kinnick, then at Washington in a three-week stretch that will define the season’s ceiling. The UNI game is where the depth pieces get September snaps, the new specialists bank operation reps in a low-stakes environment and the coaching staff gets one last look at the two-deep before conference play.
What we’re watching:
- The scoreboard at halftime. All that matters is the score at the end of the game, so they say. But good P5teams put FCS opponents away early. Edging out a win or pulling away late will leave things feeling very different than controlling this one from start to finish.
- The second wave. This is the game where L.J. Phillips Jr. and Kamari Moulton should both eat, where the backup receivers get real targets, and where the freshman class gets extended Kinnick run beyond special teams.
- Special teams operation. New kicker, new punter, new returners, new coordinator. An FCS opponent is exactly the right stage to iron out the operation before it matters against Michigan.
- What does Lester put on film? This is the type of game where we have seen Iowa go uber conservative in the past, not wanting to give too much away on film for future opponents. We could see that, but something tells me Tim Lester goes the other way and tries to put a bunch of things on film he wants to feed opposing DCs. We could see some new wrinkles here just give Michigan, OSU and Washington something different to prepare for.
Iowa should win this game comfortably and by week three of the season we should be seeing this team finding its identity. Entering Big Ten play, we need to see the QB situation resolved and if we’re going to have any confidence heading to Ann Arbor, the defensive line had better have a rotation situated.
This is a tune up game that we’ve seen get ugly in a season that was still a resounding success, but this year should avoid a repeat of 2009.
My prediction: the Hawkeyes hammer things on the ground, taking advantage of the size up front, their loaded backfield and question marks at linebacker for the Panthers. That allows the passing game to open up and forces UNI to play a losers game: chasing from behind against a Phil parker defense. Hawkeyes 38, Panthers 9.
Leave a Comment