Hawkeye fans have their fingers crossed that the Sports Illustrated jinx is just urban legend, and not a real thing.
The last time Iowa was on the cover of Sports Illustrated was in 2009. They were 9-0 then, and earned their first loss of the season after that cover appearance.
Seeing them on the latest SI cover might bring back memories of Cubs fans, heartbroken when their team was featured on the cover in August, or the Cardinals when they also graced the cover that month.
RantSports called it “one of the biggest curses in the sports world,” saying “the SI Cover Jinx strikes and strikes hard.”
Not everyone believes it’s a jinx, though. The New York Daily News blamed it for the end of a post-season home run hitting streak for Mets star Daniel Murphy – but The Kansas City Royals were also featured on a regional cover in late October, and they went on to win the World Series.
Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz doesn’t seem to buy into the curse, either.
“We’ve already done some things nobody has done here before,” Ferentz told HawkCentral. “Last time we couldn’t survive. I think we lost that next week, right? So maybe we can break that one, too. That’s one more thing we can put up on the board and try to shoot for.”
The 11-0 University of Iowa football team is on the cover of the latest Sports Illustrated edition distributed regionally, to vendors in Missouri, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota, according to Sports Illustrated. The rest of the country gets an SI edition with Cam Newton and the NFL’s Carolina Panthers on the cover.