Why Iowa's Kinnick Stadium is top-10 teams' worst nightmare - ESPN

On Saturday afternoon, Iowa will take the field at Kinnick Stadium looking to register a season-defining win against No. 5 Ohio State.

Sporting a 4-0 record and a No. 14 national ranking, the Hawkeyes have momentum on their side following a dramatic, last-gasp road win against Michigan. The contest will come with marquee pregame billing as well — «College GameDay» will be in Iowa City for the first time in 20 years.

While the oddsmakers aren't so confident a statement win for the home squad could be brewing — Iowa currently sits as a two-touchdown underdog on DraftKings — there is one specific factor Hawkeyes fans can look to as a source of confidence: Kinnick Stadium is one of the sport's foremost upset factories.

Kinnick Stadium isn't necessarily one of college football's biggest venues in pure size, seating a proud but relatively unremarkable 69,250 attendees. But it gets plenty rowdy. Accordingly, it has been something of a cauldron for unlikely Hawkeye results — and plenty more uncomfortable games for visiting top-10 teams — over the years.

Here are some of the key unique quirks that make Kinnick Stadium Iowa's big-game fortress.

Perhaps the most distinct asset Kinnick has in its upset production playbook is its most unique: pink visitors locker rooms.

Well, maybe.

As the story goes, in 1979 then-Hawkeyes coach Hayden Fry, who majored in psychology at Baylor, had the visiting locker room painted pink after reading that the color calmed people down.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, pink didn't exclusively produce calming results among visiting teams.

«When I talk to an opposing coach before a game and he mentions the pink walls, I know I've got him,» Fry wrote in his book. «I can't recall a coach who has stirred up a fuss