How to Watch Penn State vs. Iowa: Big Ten College Football, Exclusively on Peacock
How will the Nittany Lions handle a head coaching change on the road against the tough Iowa Hawkeyes?
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Longtime head coach James Franklin is out at Penn State, after the Nittany Lions lost their third consecutive college football game last weekend at home against the Northwestern Wildcats. It’s rare for a program to fire its head coach midway through an ongoing season, and beginning this weekend when they travel to face the Iowa Hawkeyes, the Nittany Lions’ schedule is about to get a whole lot tougher.
Few fans likely could’ve forecast at the start of the college football season that a Big Ten brawl between Iowa and Penn State would feature two unranked teams who seem to be heading in different directions.
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To Iowa’s credit, only eight points separate the Hawkeyes from their current 4-2 standing and a perfect undefeated record. But for Penn State, there’s turbulence aplenty as interim head coach Terry Smith steps in to fill the midseason void left by Franklin’s departure… and the battle-hardened Hawkeyes are only the first opponent in a grueling late-season scheduling gauntlet that still stands in the Nittany Lions’ path.
How to watch the Iowa vs. Penn State college football game?
The Penn State Nittany Lions (3-3) visit Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium to face the Iowa Hawkeyes (4-2) under the nighttime lights on Saturday, October 18. Kickoff time is set for 7 p.m. ET, and the Big Ten conference matchup is streaming exclusively on Peacock.
What to know about the Penn State vs. Iowa college football game
It’s tough to assess how a team like Penn State might perform in the midst of a coaching turnover. After all, the Nittany Lions (then ranked the nation’s No. 3 team by the Associated Press) took the No. 6 Oregon Ducks to two overtimes in a down-to-the-wire loss that began the current Penn State losing streak only three short weeks ago.
Penn State’s follow-up stumble against UCLA, though, serves as a perfect example of how unpredictably a team can respond to an early loss when expectations are so high. The previously-winless Bruins shocked the college football world by winning a 42-37 shootout against the Nittany Lions on October 4 — all in the aftermath of losing their own head coach to a firing decision.
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There’s no such coaching churn at Iowa, meanwhile, where longtime head coach Kirk Ferentz has led the reliable Hawkeyes to a solid 4-2 start. Iowa’s two losses have been close, too, coming against then-No. 16 Iowa State and to current No. 3 Indiana (in the pass-happy Hoosiers’ lowest offensive output of the season). Indiana’s Heisman-contending QB Fernando Mendoza tossed his team’s go-ahead pass with less than two minutes remaining in that low-scoring defensive contest, after Iowa jumped out to an early lead and hung with the Hoosiers from kickoff all the way until the final whistle.
However things shake out in Saturday’s Peacock-exclusive matchup, one thing’s for certain: Penn State’s Big Ten schedule isn’t getting easier anytime soon. After their road trip to Iowa, the Nittany Lions have a bye week before hitting the road again to face the nation’s No. 1-ranked team in Ohio State — and then they get the current No. 3 Hoosiers at home the very next weekend.
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