Licking their wounds from the massacre at the hands of Penn State, the Wildcats traveled to Kinnick Stadium to take on the undefeated Hawkeyes, ranked #4 in the BCS, fresh off of a 42–24 blowout win over Indiana, who actually led 21–7 early on over Iowa and still led 24–14 deep in the game before Iowa took command in the second half. It looked early on like Iowa was poised to make mincemeat out of Northwestern as Penn State had done a week before. This game wouldn't go Iowa's way, however; the Hawkeyes would lose their star quarterback Ricky Stanzi in the second quarter and would never recover. Northwestern nabs their best win of 2009 by upsetting then #6 Iowa (who would finish #7 in the nation) 17–10 on the road. Illinois was bowl ineligible and had little to play for except pride, which they played with in this game and had shown increasing amounts of since their 38–13 upset of Michigan. Northwestern controlled the game for three quarters before Illinois suddenly sprang to life, but the Wildcats hung on to beat the pesky Illini 21–16, and win the inaugural Land of Lincoln Trophy, which replaced the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk. Northwestern managed to grab their second major upset of 2009 against the Badgers under the lights at Ryan Field. It looked like Wisconsin was going to get blown out as the Wildcats raced out to a 27–14 halftime lead, but Wisconsin fought back to make it 30–24 after three, but Northwestern recovered a fumble on Wisky's final drive to hang on to their second big upset of 2009, winning 33–31. In what is remembered as one of the most entertaining bowl games of all time, Mike Kafka set bowl game records with 78 passing attempts and 47 completions. After a back and forth affair with numerous turnovers and missed field goals, overtime seemed only fitting. With kicker Stefan Demos hurt, Northwestern tried a fake field goal which failed, giving Auburn, the next year's national champions, the victory.