Hawkeyes' bowl fate is sealed: It's New York City

IOWA CITY, Ia. — Start spreading the news: The Iowa football team is headed to New York City.

The 7-5 Hawkeyes will play in the Dec. 27 Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium against Boston College of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

That Wednesday-afternoon game kicks off at 4:15 p.m. CT and will be televised by ESPN.

This will mark Iowa’s first football game in the state of New York since a 20-13 double-overtime win at Syracuse on Sept. 9, 2006.

The Hawkeyes still had a chance to elevate to the Holiday Bowl as of Sunday morning, but once Big Ten champion Ohio State was left out of the College Football Playoff, it effectively took away the league’s tie-in with the Citrus Bowl. That bumped everyone down a bowl peg — with 8-4 Michigan heading to the Outback Bowl and 9-3 Michigan State to the Holiday. The Music City, a yearned-for option among a majority of Hawkeye fans who were willing to make the drive to Nashville, then chose 9-3 Northwestern over Iowa.

The Hawkeyes will be seeking to snap an ugly five-game bowl losing streak. They have lost those games by an average margin of 19.4 points, and they’ve fallen behind heavily in most of them. Their last postseason win came against Missouri in the 2010 Insight Bowl.

Boston College (7-5) ended the season by winning five of its final six games. Its defensive coordinator, Jim Reid, was Iowa's linebackers coach for three seasons. He left after Iowa's 12-2 season in 2015.

The Pinstripe Bowl was launched in 2010, and this is the fourth year in which the Bronx, New York, game has been aligned with the Big Ten Conference. Penn State (overtime win, 2014), Indiana (overtime loss, 2015) and Northwestern (win, 2016) are the previous Big Ten representatives at the Pinstripe.

Iowa players are scheduled to meet the media at 3:15 p.m. Sunday, with head coach Kirk Ferentz taking questions at 4 p.m. 

Stay tuned to HawkCentral.com for more updates throughout the day.