IOWA CITY, Iowa — So how much of an irritant have those pesky Iowa Hawkeyes been to a Penn State football program that hasn't been able to shake its black-and-gold blues in recent seasons?

The Nittany Lions will try to do just that when the teams battle at 8 p.m. Saturday on ESPN.

Maybe you can't put a price tag on damaged pride and diminished national prestige, but you can in terms of revenue flowing into the university coffers. Consider the 2009 game in Beaver Stadium, for instance.

Although Penn State and Iowa finished the regular season with 10-2 records, the Orange Bowl selection committee opted to invite the Hawkeyes over the Nittany Lions to face Atlantic Coast Conference champion Georgia Tech. That decision was strictly on the basis of Iowa's head-to-head, 21-10 victory in Beaver Stadium on Sept. 26, a game in which the host team lost its early momentum and was unable to hang on to a 10-0 first-quarter lead.

By virtue of that most recent slapdown of Penn State, Iowa, which was ranked No. 10, got the more prestigious and better-paying Bowl Championship Series slot while the Nittany Lions, ranked 11th, had to settle for a trip to the Capital One Bowl to play LSU. Iowa received $14 million for its BCS gig, Penn State a little over $1 million.

But the 2008 meeting in Iowa City was the most painful. Penn State came into Kinnick Stadium with a 9-0 record, No. 3 national ranking and realistic hope of appearing in the BCS national championship game. But the dream vanished in the crisp autumn night when Iowa's Daniel Murray knocked through a 31-yard field goal with a single second remaining to lift the Hawkeyes to a 24-23 win.

It also left Penn State coaching icon Joe Paterno with a 2-7 record against Iowa, 1-7 dating to the 2000 season.

"Iowa's been a good, solid football team that's played extremely well against us," Paterno said.