Post Outback

 

 

Hello football fans!!!

 

 

HOW ‘BOUT THEM HAWKEYES!!!

 

Lost in the utter despair that has been the 2008/2009 Big Ten Bowl season, was one of the best – if not THE best – bowl effort of any Hawkeye Football team in the past 30 years.  I re-watched the game last night, and by-golly, once again we kicked South Carolina’s butt.  Coincidentally, I also TIVO’d the 2005 Capital One Bowl (the Tate-to-Halloway game, of course) and they kind of looked the same.  It was another example of an SEC team being straight-up shocked and confused how fast and hard-hitting our defense was.  “Shoot…I don’t think Iowa played more than two coverages during the game.” was Steve Spurrier’s quote after the game.  Well guess what – ya Old Ball Bitch – if you get pressure from your front four and your back seven are in the right places, that’s all you need to do.

 

Yes…Stephen Garcia looked worse than my credit score in the first half, and gave us a couple of post Christmas gifts.  But I’d like to think that the Hawkeye defense had something to do with that.  There was no running game for South Carolina all day long, and that would have held true even if they tried to establish it.

 

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Offensively, it was more of the same stuff that we saw the last 5 or 6 games of the year: Show that we have the threat of a passing game, then run Shonn Greene up your giggy.  And the reason all of that had a chance to work?  The O-line absolutely dominated the South Carolina D-line the entire game.  Mix in the fact that South Carolina was missing their best player (and leading tackler) on defense?  It was all over but the shouting.

 

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Final Thoughts…on the ’08 Hawks

 

Are you a glass is half empty or glass is half full type of person?  I certainly try to be the latter, but it’s hard to not wonder would this season would have looked like had the bartender poured our glass to the top.  Obviously we should have won more games.  This should have been a 10-win team at the very least.  But we had a QB battle that’s been long forgotten, and turnovers kicked our ass in September and early October.  Those things happen with a young team at the skill positions, which we were.

 

However, I’m proud that we learned from our mistakes, kept fighting, and had what I would consider a “Good Year”.  Kirk Ferentz called it his most rewarding year of coaching, and I can see why.

 

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With that being said, all four losses sucked…just like you’d expect them too, but this year they were more annoying than anything.  Not to dwell on the negative (because I have a lot of positives later on) but here are the four losses – ranked – with my thoughts:

 

#4) Illinois – This one is bad because Illinois wound up being so bad (something I called waaaay back in August, I’d like to add.  YES…I’m firmly patting myself on the back here and I don’t care.)  But we lost this game straight-up against a team that was fired up to play us.  We didn’t give them this game, they took it.

 

#3) Michigan State – No Hawk fan walked away from this game thinking that the better team won that day.  I think we were a better team than Michigan State that day, three weeks later, and again on New Year’s Day.  But it was at least easier to stomach this one because this was a road game against a team that wound up winning 9 games.  At the end of the year – with a more experienced Rick Stanzi – we would have beat Sparty by 10 points because we would have eliminated the turnovers.

 

#2) Pittsburgh – This will forever go down as the “Why In the Hell Didn’t We Play Stanzi” game, and we lost because of that poor coaching decision.  In fact, this was the only game of the year that I was upset with the coaching staff.  If you talk to ten Hawk fans about the losses from this season, this is loss the one that comes up the most often.  Unless they talk about…

 

#1) Northwestern – This is my own personal Waterloo of the 2008 season.  Why?  First and foremost is because it was our only home loss.  I wanted to start a new Kinnick winning streak, which would have been impressive once again with the November upset of Penn State.  But instead we turned the ball over 5 times and erased a 3 score lead.  THIS is the game that stopped this team from being a 10-win team, and being ranked going into the bowl game.

 

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The nine wins were all great…just as you expected them to be.  Here they are ranked from OK to the best wins of the year:

 

#9) Florida International – The only home game I didn’t attend.  Some people may put this up to #8 because it was the first game Rick Stanzi started…an interesting turn-of-events.

 

#8) Maine – It’s always good to see the team play well in the home opener…regardless of the opponent.

 

(It actually gets tough ranking them from here on out…)

 

#7) Indiana – This FELT like a better win than it did at the time, as we needed this one BIG TIME to heal the wounds from a 3-game losing streak.  But Indiana was a bad team…so we should have won this game.

 

#6) Wisconsin – Once again, not a good team, and we caught them at the perfect time, but Kirk Ferentz hadn’t beat Bielema yet, so it was good to see.  And also because it’s the Badgers and we beat them so bad, it was even more rewarding.

 

#5) Purdue – This could be higher, as we had to pull this one out of our butt.  This was definitely the biggest “Whew!” game of the year.  But once again, this was not a good team and we were at home so we SHOULD HAVE won this game.

 

#4) Minnesota – Special points for me because I live in Minneapolis and I put this one up on a pedestal, and we absolutely dismantled them.  The win also got us to a New Year’s Day bowl.  Also, you never know how things are gonna go in that damn dome, so this was great to see.  And this game gets a special bonus point since the last Gopher football game in the dome was one of the worst losses in Minnesota history.  Giggle, giggle.

 

#3) South Carolina – I had a sneaking suspicion that we were much better than the 4 points of spread that we were being given, but you just never know when you play outside the conference.  And bowl wins – especially on New Year’s Day – are always special.

 

#2) Iowa State – Yes I know that Iowa State was shitty.  But I hate Iowa State football fans in September, and I needed some redemption after the unmitigated disaster that was the 2007 Iowa State game.  And keep in mind; this was a nail-biter until Andy Brodell had the play of his Hawkeye career with that punt return for a touchdown.  And trust me – this season would have looked a LOT different had we lost this game.  In fact, I seriously doubt we would have even made a bowl.  It would have been a 4-game losing streak instead of a three-game losing streak and I’m not sure we would have been able to recover.  Also, I would have been in jail.

 

#1) Penn State – Duh.  I’ll have to reflect on this someday – but this just might be my favorite Kinnick Stadium experience as a fan of all time.  You’ll only get to watch a handful of games in your entire life that get decided by a last-second field goal.  And when that game is your Hawks beating the #2 team in the country at night…then that’s pretty special.  Only your wife surprising you when you get back from a long business trip with fresh fake boobs could have been better than that day.

 

 

Have fun with this bloggers!  Please feel free to tear my rankings apart!

 

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Yearly Awards That Are Made Up By Me

 

Team MVP

Shonn Greene – This isn’t as much of a no-brainer as it seems, as something tells me that Mitch King was more of the vocal leader of the entire team.  However, the entire team took the whole INDENTITY of Shonn Greene and our running game, so you have to give the nod to him.  We may never see a Doak Walker winner at Iowa again.

 

Team Leader

Mitch King – I always think about him and his crazy blonde hair flying all over the place while he got the team pumped up at the beginning of the game.

 

Offensive MVP

Rick Stanzi – The second word in MVP is ‘valuable’ and that’s exactly what Stanzi wound up being for the 2008 Hawkeyes.  We needed somebody to step up and play the most important position on the field, and Stanzi did that.  As Stanzi went, so did the Hawkeyes.  And if he was bad all year, then it would have had to be Christensen’s team.  Thank you Football Gods for the continued development of Rick Stanzi

 

Offensive Favorite Guy

Seth Olsen – This is mostly going off of the fact that I talked to him at the bar when I was absolutely melba toasted (and he was really cool), but also because he was a Senior leader on the offense and that’s huge.

 

Offensive Tough Guy

Rob Bruggeman – I think we would have been better last year if Bruggeman would have been healthy.  He brought nastiness to our O-line that we had been missing in quite a while.

 

Offensive ‘You Lucky Bastard’ Guy

Daniel Murray – Why was he even kicking that field goal?  How the hell did that duck not get blocked?  I don’t know…I’m just glad that it went through, and that Murray had the chance to kick it.

 

Offensive Most Talented

Bryan Bulaga – Coming to an NFL camp as early as 2010.

 

Offensive Most Under Appreciated

Andy Brodell – He came up with big plays and big catches when we needed them.  I’m mostly going off of the ISU punt return here, but we needed him.

 

Offensive ‘We’re Going To Miss That Guy Next Year’ Guy

Brandon Myers – I shudder to think what kind of season Stanzi (and therefore the team would have had if Brandon Myers didn’t step it up like he did this year.  I believe he’ll make an NFL team very happy when they pick him up late this April.

 

Offensive ‘He Had a Sneaky Good Year’ Guy

DJK – I hope he takes yet another big leap forward next year.

 

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Defensive MVP

Mitch King – It usually starts from the inside out, and that’s how our defense was this year.

 

Defensive Favorite Guy

Pat Angerer – Because he really stepped up, and because that picture he used for his bio picture is so damn funny.

 

Defensive Tough Guy

Matt Kroul – His continuous starting streak (along with Mitch King) is amazing.  When you don’t know that he’s there, you know that he’s playing well.

 

Defensive ‘You Lucky Bastard’ Guy

Jeremiah Hunter – Would have Jeff Tarpininan played as well or even better had he not got hurt?  Who knows, but what I DO know is that Jeremiah Hunter played really well this year.

 

Defensive Most Talented

AJ Edds – I think he’ll be what Chad Greenway was before he leaves Iowa City.

 

Defensive Most Under Appreciated

Bradley Fletcher – Filled in for the departed Charles Godfrey and not only played well…but we didn’t miss a beat.  I hope he gets the same chance to switch to safety and play in the NFL.

 

Defensive ‘He Had a Sneaky Good Year’ Guy

Amari Spivey – Next year…I doubt he will be so sneaky.

 

Special Teams ‘Don’t Forget About the Punter’ Guy

Ryan Donahue – You only notice the punter when he really screws up, and Donahue never really did.

 

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Oh Yea – Then There’s That Ferentz Thing

 

I don’t know what’s going to happen with Ferentz.  I know that the rumors seem to have settled down.  I also know that people like to make mountains out of molehills when it comes to this stuff.  But I also know that it would be good timing for Ferentz to leave right now, as an injury here and a dropped pass there could give us another disappointing season next year, and Ferentz could miss his opportunity.

 

 

What I Hope Ferentz Sees:

 

• A big opening for a 2 year run in the Big Ten.

 

• A good returning QB in Rick Stanzi.

 

• A good returning RB in Jewell Hampton, as well as Jeff Brinson and incoming super-Freshman Brandon Wegher.

 

• Enough talent at WR to be OK, plus incoming super-freshman Keenan Davis.

 

• Deep experience along the O-Line.

 

• His son being one of those aforementioned O-Linemen.

 

• A deep D-line to replace King and Kroul.

 

• Out talented LB crew.

 

I guess we’ll just see how this plays out.

 

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All in all…a VERY rewarding year to follow Iowa Hawkeye Football.  As it turns out, the year was all about Rick Stanzi stepping in and playing well, and how it was a damn shame that we couldn’t have done that earlier.  I know a lot of that blame could go on Ferentz, but something tells me that Stanzi was not nearly as comfortable with the offense as he seemed in September and early October, and that we were damn lucky to have Shonn Greene and such a good defense (which nobody knew at that time) to cover that up.

 

 

And perhaps most important: I can’t WAIT until 2009!!!

 

 

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The Utes are getting screwed.  There’s no plausible debate on why they’re not in the conversation for a National Championship.  None.  I will write more on this after I see how these last two (major) bowl games play out.

 

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The Fiesta Bowl

Texas vs. Ohio State

7:00 PM / Fox / Line: Texas by 9

 

The biggest question for me tonight is whether or not Texas will come out flat, and unhappy that they’re in this bowl and not playing Florida for the BCS Championship.  Could this serve as motivation?  I really don’t think so, as Mack Brown and the team probably know that a blow-out win over Ohio State will not really do them many favors in the court of public opinion.  EVERYBODY expects Texas to blow out Ohio State tonight.

 

The two biggest things that you’ll need to see to have Ohio State win this game:

1)      The OSU defense plays amazing.

2)      A healthy Beanie Wells goes OFF.

 

If…IF you see those two things happen, this will be a good game and Ohio State will have a chance to win.

 

But if…IF either of those things fail to happen, then I don’t see how Ohio State will be able to keep up with the points that Texas will put up tonight.  The gap at QB between Colt McCoy & Texas as compared to a young Terrelle Prior & OSU is staggering.  I have a TON of respect for Colt McCoy, and not just because he bagged himself a hot-ass track star girlfriend.  If he doesn’t beat you with his arm, he can do it with his legs.  And for the record, I think he’ll be a good NFL QB as well.

 

Texas covers.

 

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More on Thursday before the BCS Championship.

 

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National  Football  League

 

FREAKING VIKINGS!!!  Now the Giants have to play the Eagles instead of the Cardinals.  Hurumph…

 

 

HAVE A GREAT Tuesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

GO HAWKS!

 

- Jeffrey the Greek!